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House sparrows and starlings were the first, and they descended by the dozens.

After a few days, I heard the squawk of a blue jay one morning. On a deer stand, I can be driven to distraction by a single jay. But in my backyard, a jay was a splash of color on a winter day. It flitted around the cherry tree. Another soon joined it.

The rush was on.

A bright red male cardinal and its brown mate started regular morning shows. Mourning doves began picking dropped grain off the ground. A handful of dark-eyed juncos showed up after a January snowstorm. A couple of unidentified sparrows flashed through one morning. Above the suet holder, a downy woodpecker did its herky- jerky walk up and down the maple. (A downy working a tree always reminds me of Michael Jackson doing his moonwalk.)

I rearranged my office so the desk was next to a window. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the bird feeder. A pair of pocket binoculars stays on the computer tower and a copy of Birds of Chicago: Including NE Illinois and NW Indiana, by Chris C. Fisher and David B. Johnson, sits within arm's reach.

The feeder was a wedding gift, but while we lived in a three-flat on the Northwest Side, all it did was clutter up our basement storage bin. It is a colossus, made of white pine two feet by three feet with a high-pitched roof.

When we moved to a place with a small yard, I immediately dug a hole in a flower bed near the maple. I planted a four-foot 4-by-4, then hammered the feeder into it. It stood empty until the snow started.

I hung a feeder filled with sugar water on the porch. Ruby- throated hummingbirds would hover above it. If we turned our heads too quickly, they seemed to dematerialize into the air. I hung a thistle feeder, too. American goldfinches found it within a week.

Then the fall migration began, and I put the porch feeders away. For a few months, birding was limited to the honk of Canada geese in the morning or the caw of passing crows.

With the snow, I filled the wooden feeder and put suet in a wire basket tied to the maple.

They came.

This being the real natural world and not a Walt Disney production, predators were close behind. Cats began stalking the feeder. We took off the back panel so the birds had an escape route, and the cats soon gave up.

One morning, so many birds were hanging around they created a background hum of calls that wafted through the closed windows while I worked. Suddenly there was complete silence.

I looked out, and not a single bird was around. No sparrows fluttered in and out of the mulberry bush. The jays weren't sitting in the cherry tree. Even the rows of starlings had abandoned the maple.

A raptor was around. I caught the shadow of it passing to the north. It looked like a red-tailed hawk.

Everyone is invited to chronicle the birds that make up the natural background in the Great Backyard Bird Count 2000 from Friday through Monday.

The project by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is based on the Internet it will be a family activity.

It is not restricted by any means to the suburban or rural areas. In Chicago, there are wonders such as the great horned owl that has been hanging around Humboldt Park for several weeks, the parakeets of Jackson Park and the peregrine falcons downtown.

SHOW TIME: Ed Viesturs, 40, who went from the flatlands of Rockford to climb Mt. Everest five times, headlines Outside's International Adventure Travel and Outdoor Show at the Rosemont Convention Center. He will give a slide presentation at 4 p.m. Saturday.

Highland Park could join a small but growing number of communities throughout the country that are banning free-roaming cats from their neighborhoods.

The north suburb is considering an ordinance that would prohibit residents from letting their cats wander the streets without a leash or enter a neighbor's yard.

Conservationists in the community are urging the passage of the law because of the loss of small wildlife in the area and the health risks encountered by outdoor cats.

"I have become convinced that over the years we have been losing birds because of the cats and the deer that are destroying their habitat," said Highland Park Councilman Peter Koukos, who recommended this week that the city's environment commission study the issue.

The commission will be evaluating proposals that are used around the country to control outdoor cats, including an ordinance used in Montgomery County, Md.

A law passed there in August makes it illegal for a cat to be in a neighbor's yard without permission or to defecate outside the owner's property. If a cat is found in violation, the owner can face a $100 fine per occurrence.

"This is not an anti-cat ordinance," said Donald Dann, a Highland Park conservationist who brought the issue to the council. "I want to make the environment safe for everybody, including cats."

The American Veterinarian Medical Association estimates there were about 2.2 million cat owners in Illinois in 1996. Nationally, there are about 66 million cat owners, and about 65 percent of them allow their cats to roam outside, according to the American Bird Conservancy.

Roaming cats have been an issue in other Illinois communities. Waukegan, for example, has had an anti-roaming ordinance on the books for more than 20 years, according to Tina Frgassi with the city's animal control office.

Dann said the issue should appeal to cat lovers because cats that are kept indoors live an average of 17 years compared to the two to five years of an outside cat.

But the real appeal will come from conservationists who argue that, nationally, millions of birds are killed by wayward cats.

One of the country's leading cat associations said the felines are getting a bum rap.

"Our position is that cats are not very efficient predators of birds and they are often the scapegoat for what could be other factors," said Joan Miller, the legislative coordinator for the Cat Fanciers Association.

But keeping cats indoors is a good idea, vets and other cat authorities say. "We have seen the trauma of cats sleeping underneath car hoods and then getting caught in the fan blades," said Dr. Richard Rossman, a veterinarian at Glen Oak Dog and Cat Hospital in Glenview.

We had a visiting cat in our home for a few weeks before it moved to its new digs.

As I opened another teeny tin of cat food for the fine feline, I happened to look at the can's label.

"Savory Hunter's Stew with Venison," the label read.

I inspected another can.

"Lamb and Kidney Stew."

I peered at a third can.

"Savory Hunter's Stew with Duck."

A 40-watt bulb clicked on in my head:

"This danged cat is eating better than I am!"

I spooned half a can of "Savory Hunter's Stew with Venison" into a small dish and set it before the cat.

I'll admit the food's scent was appetizing.

Though the stew-and-venison itself seemed to be of a certain stewish color that wasn't all that delicious looking.

I got to thinking about the last time I had hunter's stew, if ever. Or venison.

The 40-watt bulb lit up again.

I remembered having hunter's stew in a poshy restaurant on a special occasion.

Venison? Once I had some at a family reunion on the Montana-North Dakota border, on a ranch.

The elk or moose or whatever had been shot on a recent hunting trip. Yummy!

Have I ever had duck? I've seen it on menus. I don't recall it being served in any house that housed family members.

Lamb and kidneys? Are you kidney? Make that kidding. These foods are even more foreign than duck and venison in most kitchens I have known.

You wonder if this visiting cat has a preference: Hunter's Stew with Duck over Hunter's Stew with Venison.

Or would it rather have lamb without the kidneys or the kidneys without the lamb?

As I opened can after can, day after day, I discerned no favorites. The cat would eat anything willingly, if it came from a can and was not crunchy stuff from a box.

You know cats. So I also served from the left. And decanted the wine carefully. I'm lying about the wine.

Since cats can't read (not that I know of, because cats don't reveal everything they know) the cat food labels must be meant to lure human beings into buying this particular brand and type of cat food over all others.

So you ask why buy cat food at all? Let the cat fend for itself.

Hey, I like neighborhood birds as well as anyone.

I'd rather feed filet mignon to the cat if necessary, to keep it away from the robins and blue jays and starlings.

Pigeons? Let me think about that.

Besides, lots of house cats think they are 500-pound gorillas who can do anything.

What would happen if this particular cat met a bunch of crows.

If the crows landed en masse, who knows if this cat would emerge triumphant or even find safety under a nearby porch?

So the gourmet cat food caravan continuously flowed into the cat's dish, each can adorned with maddeningly delicious hints of what was inside.

Here's your Hunter's Stew, cat.

Do you mind if I watch you eat it while I chew my tasteless breakfast food?

Thanks, I needed that.

Kathy McCollough loves to sit on her deck and watch robins, sparrows and wrens splash in her birdbath, and every year she seems to have more feathered friends. In fact, she thinks the birds may have an annual reunion right in her backyard.

"I think they return every year," she said. "It's something to look forward to in the spring. We'll hear them at 3:30 or 4 in the morning just chirping away. I'm just sure it's all the ones who were here last year or before."

Although McCollough enjoys the music and winged dances of these reunions, the birdbath is special to her for another reason.

"It was my husband's parents'," she said. "When they moved into a smaller place, we inherited it. The fact that it came from them makes it so special."

The concrete birdbath rests in shade under several tall pines in the eastern corner of the McCollough's backyard. "We can see it from every window in the back of our house," she said.

Irving Stephenson, owner of Coeur d'Alene's Wild Bird Unlimited approves. "Birds will get used to just about anything," he said. "Like the movement in the house if (the birdbath) is by a window."

Stephenson said the best place to put a birdbath is in the shade, in an open area free of shrubs, so cats can't hide below.

But McCollough doesn't have trouble with a cat.

"The squirrels jump from the trees," she said. "Once they even knocked the top off." At first, McCollough didn't know what had happened and replaced the top of the birdbath. Then, the next day she saw a squirrel sitting in the middle of the bowl.

"Another year - we have two bird houses in our yard, too - the squirrels were bothering the baby birds and I went outside to chase them away from the nests," McCollough said. "Later when I went out to sit on the deck, a mama bird came to a branch very close to me. It was as close as she could get. I always thought she was saying 'thank you for all your help.'"

Birdbaths may allow you the opportunity to examine a bird at a closer range than you have ever done before. As the birds relax in their new surroundings, they stay for longer periods of time.

One way to make your birdbath inviting, is to keep it clean.

"The most important thing is to keep the water as fresh as possible," said Stephenson. "The biggest thing would be cleanliness, especially in hot weather when everything really grows - including bacteria and algae. The key is to keep the water moving if you can and change it often. Keep it free of microbes and little creatures."

Since birds wade and don't swim, the water should be shallow. Also, the bottom of the birdbath should be rough so they won't lose their footing.

"If it's too deep they won't get in it, but they might drink from it," Stephenson added. He suggests placing a rock in the middle of your birdbath for the birds to sit on.

For a birdbath that's extra attractive to birds, create motion or waves in the water. "I sell what's called a 'water wiggler,' a device that you put in the bottom that creates gentle ripples," Stephenson said. "Moving water attracts birds and it also doesn't allow the mosquitoes a chance to lay their eggs. Mosquitoes like still water like ponds."

Birdbaths can offer backyard bird-watching pleasure year round. As winter creeps back into the air, consider adding a heating device to your birdbath. "We have birdbaths that are heated, and we have heaters that you can plug into them," he said. "Both can help." Stephenson prefers plastic or resin birdbaths.

McCollough said she and her husband Mac plan to pass on their birdbath to their children. "When they were kids they always enjoyed watching the birds play in it under an apple tree, at Mac's parents' place," she said. "They'll always have that memory, and that's special."

SIDEBAR: HOW TO CLEAN A BIRDBATH -- Empty dirty water out of the birdbath by tipping it to the side. -- Rinse with a hard spray of water from the hose, or open the drain on the bottom of the birdbath. -- Add a small amount of water and scrub the birdbath thoroughly with a stiff brush -- Make a solution containing bleach (3/4 c. bleach to 1 gal. water) to remove algae that will not come off with scrubbing. -- Pour the bleach solution into the birdbath and scrub again. -- Remove the birdbath from the yard or cover it with a piece of wood or plastic and allow the bleach solution to sit for about 15 minutes.

Dear Readers: If you love birds and want to attract them to your yard, here's how to roll out the birdie welcome mat.

One of the best ways to have birds visit your yard is to hang out a bird feeder as a "welcome" sign. Here are a few hints to get you started:

-- Make sure the bird feeder is at least 4 feet off the ground to keep predators -- like cats and dogs -- away from your feathered friends.

-- Be sure to hang it either right next to a window or far away from one to lessen the chance that a bird will fly into the glass.

-- Remember to replace and replenish bird food often. Birds shouldn't eat moldy or bug-infested food.

-- For hummingbird feeders, use a solution of 4 parts boiled water to 1 part white granulated sugar. No need to dye the solution red -- a color that is notorious for attracting hummingbirds. A red feeder or red ribbon tied around it will work, too.

-- Different birds like different foods, so experiment with a variety of choices or consider visiting your local bird store for advice on what the "native birds" in your area seem to enjoy most. - - Heloise

Dear Readers: Leanne Teinert of New Ulm, Texas, sent us a photo of her two 10-week-old puppies, a border collie/blue heeler mix. One puppy has black eyes, and the other one has blue eyes. She named the puppies Black and Blue, and they are darling! Send your favorite, unusual pet photo to: Heloise/Pet Photo, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, TX 78279-5000. -- Heloise

Dear Heloise: I prefer to brush my dogs outside rather than get hair all over the house. I have an old table in the shade and put the dog on it. I hang an old flowerpot from the tree and use that to hold the brushes, combs, etc. -- Judythe Samter, Thayer, Ind.

Dear Heloise: We live in the country and occasionally have possums and raccoons outside the house. One morning there was a possum lying on the porch that looked dead. I got some heavy gloves and a pair of long-handled pliers, grasped it by the tail and noticed its eyes rolling a little. I realized it wasn't dead -- just playing possum!

So, I would urge others to wait a little bit before moving a possum -- because it might just wander away on its own. -- No name, via fax

Dear Heloise: I wanted to pass along the following: Before you buy fish for your aquarium, do a little research. Be sure you only buy fish species that get along with each other. It's also important to know how big fish will get, because they could quickly outgrow a small aquarium.

I'm not much of a twitcher, but even I tend to stop and stare at birds of prey. So I nearly caused a pile-up the other morning when, driving up the M40 in Oxfordshire, I saw a big buzzardy kind of thing gripping the breeze above the slow lane. It had pale white flashes on the underside of its wings, feathers prominent at the tips, and a superbly fanned tail.

"Christ!" said my passenger. "That's a red kite."

Two more of them came spinning out of the trees. For the first time I understood why kites are so-called: the birds seemed to flop and collapse in the air just like toys when the breeze loosens their strings. And I couldn't help gasping, because even a bird-ignoramus such as myself knew that until very recently the red kite had been extinct in England. It was like the old joke about London buses: you wait centuries just aching for a glimpse, and then three turn up at once.

The red kite is a scavenger, and in Stuart England it was such a pest that the King had them wiped out. A handful clung on in Wales, but elsewhere they disappeared entirely until, in 1989, a programme was launched to reintroduce them. In this part of the South-east the sponsor was Paul Getty, the cricket-loving billionaire whose estate nestles in one of these Chiltern valleys. The reintroduction has obviously been a success, and it was sobering to realise that this might be thanks to - rather than in spite of - the motorway. To a hawk, a busy road is a canteen, full of interesting snacks, freshly squashed.

It was a heartening sight, coming as it did at a time when our birds seem to be suffering. As this newspaper has indicated (we are offering a pounds 5,000 prize to the best scientific analysis of the sudden decline of the sparrow), there has been a mysterious shift in our avian ecology. Crows and magpies are on the march, but smaller birds are dwindling. The headline on the website of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which takes the stability of our feathered population as an index of how well we manage the environment as a whole, states: "Lowest ebb on record for many UK birds." On closer inspection, this seems unduly glum. The 139 "common" species are more numerous now than they were in 1970; and the 33 "rare" species - grebes, harriers, orioles and so on - have nearly doubled.

And in London, at least, there is cause for fresh hope. Yesterday, a new wildfowl park opened on the site of some disused reservoirs in Barnes. It is the posthumous dreamchild of Sir Peter Scott, the naturalist whose wild-bird haven at Slimbridge was a pioneering model of conservation, and who envisioned, before his death in 1989, the establishment of a similar sanctuary in London. On Thursday, the patrons - Thames Water, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and Berkeley Homes - threw a launch party. Fired with my brand-new enthusiasm for the red kite, I went along.

The launch was marvellous. In a disused bowl of rough wetland, wedged between the chimneys of the Hammersmith power station and the elevated section of the M4, stands a placid little Arcadia. Swifts boomerang through the air; goldfinches hang on the perimeter fence; lapwings flutter and whistle on the grassy banks.

It felt like the set of a wildlife documentary, so it was appropriate that the centre was opened by Sir David Attenborough. "It's a wonderful, idyllic, romantic dream," he said. "A dream that goes back to St Francis. A dream that human beings and wild creatures can live together, that you can stand just yards away from a bird that has chosen - chosen - to come to precisely this patch of water." The dream has been hard-won, the product of a 12-year business project. Thames Water raised pounds 11 million by selling the land for development of 340 smart houses on the northern perimeter: the wildfowl park is the icing on the cake. Local residents were sceptical, quick to complain about the new houses. But now they have new concerns: the bullfrogs yell through the night.

The launch had its comical aspects. Was this a formal opening or a tramp through the mud? Some people dressed as if for Royal Ascot, clutching their hats; others for a Pennine hike. And the centre is bang on the flight path into Heathrow: jets raged overhead, and drowned out the speeches. But the birds didn't seem to care. The sun came out, and we strolled into the reserve itself. In the international sections, planted to resemble the Arctic tundra or the South American wilderness, the birds have clipped wings and have been flown in. But out in the wilder pools nature is taking its own course: it's a bobbing mass of lapwings and plovers, mallards and swans, herons and geese of all kinds (and all nationalities).

Maurice Hornocker might never have turned his back on Iowa if he hadn't read a magazine article about a forester.

That article prompted him to choose life in the mountains rather than life on a farm. Because he did, cougars enjoy a better reputation. Moscow, Idaho, has become a center for wildlife research.

Siberian tigers are more likely to survive in the wild.

Now it's Hornocker who is featured in magazines and helps launch the careers of others.

"It was reading about Maurice and his work with cougars that inspired me to become a veterinarian," said Fred Runkel of Spokane, who has never met Hornocker. "I think he had that kind of effect on a lot of people who went into wildlife fields."

Hornocker edited and contributed to the 1997 Sierra Club book, "Track of the Tiger." Outside magazine included him in an article last year about people making a difference for nature. Hornocker and Howard Quigley, who directs the Hornocker Wildlife Institute in Moscow, were featured by the National Geographic Society in a 1997 magazine article and 1996 television special about their work in Siberia.

Most recently, Hornocker wrote the introduction and provided photographs for Peter Matthiessen's "Tigers in the Snow." Matthiessen calls Hornocker "probably the world's foremost authority on the great cats."

Matthiessen is one of the pre-eminent modern nature writers. His book has brought greater attention to the plight of tigers as well as to Hornocker, a 69-year-old wildlife biologist with eyes the color of faded denim and hair the color of brushed steel.

Not bad for a kid who had been groomed to stay on the family's 400 acres.

"My father had my life planned for me," said Hornocker, who grew up hunting and trapping on the farms and in the forests of southern Iowa. When the bookmobile came around, Hornocker checked out anything about birds.

Meanwhile, Paul Errington was studying wildlife for Iowa State University, 90 miles from the Hornocker farm. Iowa native Aldo Leopold was writing "Sand County Almanac," which introduced Americans to the field of ecology.

They were two of the most influential biologists of the 20th Century.

"But I didn't know anything about any of that," said Hornocker. "The only thing I knew about wildlife biology was there was a game warden and you wanted to watch out for him.

"I bought all my books and school supplies with furs I sold to Sears-Roebuck. ... More than once, I was sent home from school because I smelled of skunk."

Hornocker served four years in the Navy, including combat duty in Korea. Then he returned to the farm.

Sitting in a doctor's waiting room in 1956, he picked up a magazine and read about a ranger's life in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. "What am I doing here?" Hornocker asked himself.

He called the University of Montana, because it was the school the ranger had attended, and asked to speak to Dean of Forestry Ross Williams.

"I told him about my interest, but I thought I was too old to go to school. I was 26, married and had a baby," with the second of his three daughters due soon, said Hornocker. "Ross said, `I've got a whole school full of people like you.'"

Hornocker's father didn't speak to him for two years after he moved to Missoula. His older brother eventually took over the farm. Hornocker likes to visit, partly to note the changes stemming from modern farming practices. There are fewer people and hardly any quail, but more whitetail deer and turkeys, the still-avid hunter said.

His first summer in Montana, Hornocker took a job running errands for John Craighead, who was studying wildlife in the Bitterroot Valley.

Craighead, and his brother, Frank Craighead, later gained fame for grizzly bear studies at Yellowstone National Park. The brothers radio- collared the bears, pioneering methods used today on a wide array of species.

Hornocker helped with the grizzly studies for five years starting in 1959. His farm-learned animal sense helped keep the scientists safe as they prodded grizzlies, John Craighead said. But at least twice, team members had to hole up in the Craigheads' car, as grizzlies that had awakened too soon from tranquilizer darts began battering their equipment and the car's exterior.

From Yellowstone bears, Hornocker shifted in 1964 to Idaho cougars, signing a state contract to determine whether the cats were decimating elk and deer herds, as game managers believed. Hornocker spent 10 years on the study, sometimes living in the Frank Church- River of No Return Wilderness. Early on, he concluded that cougars had little impact on game herds.

"He was instrumental to getting recognition that the cougar needed protection, it couldn't just be hunted at will, the way it had been," said John Craighead.

Not that Hornocker opposes regulated hunting or trapping. Neither does he oppose the use of hounds for cougar hunting, a practice Washington voters outlawed in 1996.

Fear of the bird flu sweeping across Asia has played a major role in driving the government's flurry of preparations for a worldwide epidemic.

That concern prompted President Bush to meet Friday with vaccinemakers to try to persuade them to step up production, and it led the Health and Human Services secretary, Michael O. Leavitt, to depart Saturday for a 10-day trip to at least four Asian nations to discuss planning for a pandemic flu.

But scientists say that although the threat from the current avian virus is real, it is probably not immediate.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a bird flu pandemic was unlikely this year.

"How unlikely, I can't quantitate it," Fauci said. But, he added, "You must prepare for the worst-case scenario. To do anything less would be irresponsible."

"I would not say it's imminent or inevitable," said Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. "I think in the future there will be a pandemic." But, he added, whether that pandemic will be bird flu or another type, no one can say.

The Bush administration is in the final stages of preparing a plan to deal with pandemic flu. A draft shows that the country is woefully unprepared, and it warns that a severe pandemic will kill millions, overwhelm hospitals and disrupt much of the nation.

What worries scientists about the current strain of bird flu, known as H5N1, is that it has shown some ominous traits. Though it does not often infect humans, it can, and when it does, it seems to be uncommonly lethal. It has killed 60 people of the 116 known to have been infected.

Alarm heightened on Thursday when a scientific team led by Taubenberger reported that the 1918 flu virus, which killed 50 million people worldwide, was also a bird flu that jumped directly to humans.

But there is a crucial difference: The 1918 flu was highly contagious, while today's bird flu has so far shown little ability to spread from person to person. But a mutation making the virus more transmissible could set the stage for a pandemic.

Another concern is that H5N1 has become widespread, killing millions of birds in 11 countries and widely dispersing as migratory birds carry it even greater distances. This month, it was reported in Romania.

Meanwhile, it is spreading widely among birds in Asia. And it has unusual staying power: it has persisted in different parts of the world since it emerged in 1997.

"Most bird flus emerge briefly and are relatively localized," said Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah and chairman of the pandemic influenza task force of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The most worrisome thing about H5N1, he said, is that it has not gone away.

Some scientists suspect that if H5N1 has not caused a pandemic by now, then it will not, because it must be incapable of making the needed changes. But others say there is no way to tell what the virus will do as time goes on. And they point out that no one knows how long it took for the 1918 virus to develop the properties that led to a pandemic.

Meanwhile, H5N1 seems to be finding its way into more and more species. Once known to infect chickens, ducks and the occasional person, the virus is now found in a wide range of birds, and it has infected cats.

"It killed tigers at the Bangkok zoo, which is quite remarkable because flu is not traditionally a big problem for cats," Pavia said.

It has also infected pigs, which in the past have been a vehicle to carry viruses from birds to humans.

"We should be worried but not panicked, Pavia concluded.

The timing of the bird flu's emergence also makes scientists nervous, because many believe that based on history, the world is overdue for a pandemic. Pandemics occur when a flu virus changes so markedly from previous strains that people have no immunity, and vast numbers fall ill.

"In the 20th century there were three pandemics, which means an average of one every 30 years," Fauci said. "The last one was in 1968, so it's 37 years. Just on the basis of evolution, of how things go, we're overdue."

Dr. Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office, said: "You get this sense of compounding risks. First, it's in some birds. Then more. Then more area, then more mammals and then to humans, albeit inefficiently."

In just a few instances, Gellin noted, the virus does appear to have spread from person to person.

"The only thing it hasn't done is to become an efficient transmitter among humans," he said. "It's done all the other things that are steps toward becoming a pandemic virus."

But not everyone is equally worried about the bird flu.

The fear "is very much overdone, in my opinion," said Dr. Edwin Kilbourne, an emeritus professor of immunology at New York Medical College, who has treated flu patients since the 1957 pandemic and has studied the 1918 flu.

The National Park Service has launched an effort to live-trap the free-roaming cats that prey on shorebirds at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Marauding feral cats from villages on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands have decimated some nesting sites for wild birds and threaten others, said Marcia Lyons, a park service biologist who works at the seashore.

"They are not soft, warm little `puddy tats,' " she said, using the cartoon character Tweety Bird's way of describing felines. "They are wild."

In the past, the cats were concentrated on beaches adjacent to the villages. Now, Lyons said, populations have increased and the cats range throughout the 80 miles of long, narrow islands stretching from Nags Head to Ocracoke.

She said the cats have become a big problem for beach-nesting birds, some of which are rare and protected by federal law because their populations are considered threatened or endangered. Ground- nesting birds, including least terns and piping plovers, are particularly vulnerable, because the cats feed on unprotected eggs during the day and catch nesting adults and chicks at night, she said.

Dozens of birds have been killed at some sites. It's hard to estimate the toll on the seashore because a feeding cat might kill only a small number at a time, she said. But repeated forays by animals that find easy prey add up to a serious loss. Besides killing birds outright, she said, the attacks cause birds to move to abandon their nesting grounds.

"They have the capability of wiping out all the young, either by eating the eggs or the nestlings," said Linda Winter of the American Bird Conservancy, which encourages cat owners to keep their animals inside to protect songbirds, shorebirds and other wildlife.

National Seashore workers set live traps and check them during regular patrols of beaches and nesting sites. They also place cages around some nesting sites to protect the birds from cats and other predators such as raccoons.

At least 10 cats were captured in the past year, Lyons said, adding that the animals are clever and soon learn to avoid the traps.

Captured cats are turned over to the Dare County Animal Shelter, where they may be reclaimed by owners, placed for adoption or euthanized.

GeeGee Rosell, a resident of Buxton on Hatteras Island, agreed with Lyons that the number of cats in the villages has increased as more people live on the islands. The stray cats fare better in the summer, she said, because vacationers feed them while visiting the beach.

"In the winter they starve because there is no food," she said.

Lyons said none of the cats trapped so far has had an identification tag that would indicate it was a pet.

With 168 birds on the list of the world's most critically endangered creatures--and many of them from remote, inhospitable places--researchers cannot say for sure which species is the rarest. But that dubious distinction may belong to the po'ouli (pronounced "poh-oh-U-lee"). This Hawaiian honeycreeper, whose name means "black-faced," survives only in a few hundred acres of nearly impenetrable rain forest on the windward side of Maui's Haleakala Crater. At last count, the known po'ouli population was six. And with time running out, experts are scrambling to find a way to save the species from extinction.

If they do succeed, chances are good that Tonnie Casey will be the one who flies to the rescue--literally, at the controls of a Huey helicopter dropping poison bait to eliminate the rats that overrun po'ouli habitat. A biologist for Hawaii's largest private landowner, Kamehameha School's Bishop Estate, Casey has a vested interest in the po'ouli's survival: She was the bird specialist who discovered the species in 1973 while working with college students on an ecological study of what is now the state's Hanawi Natural Area Reserve. But when Casey returned to her native Hawaii after a couple of peripatetic decades that included a long stint of flying choppers for the U.S. Army, she found that the bird had virtually disappeared in her absence.

Black and Pacific rats, which arrived long ago in the Hawaiian Islands as stowaways, have been implicated along with mosquito-borne disease, habitat loss and forest degradation by feral pigs in the extinction of other endemic honeycreepers. At least 11 species have disappeared since the explorer Captain James Cook dropped anchor there in 1778, and another 16 are on the world threatened list, compiled by the IUCNWorld Conservation Union.

Mostly forest birds, the honeycreepers evolved from an unidentified finch ancestor into dozens of species. All of them are defenseless against the nocturnal, tree-climbing rats, which raid nests and kill the adults.

"I believe that we can save the po'ouli if we follow New Zealand's example--and do it quickly," says Casey, who is also commander of the National Guard helicopter unit at Hilo, Hawaii. "They've had success using aerial drops of toxicants to create rat-free island sanctuaries for threatened native birds."

New Zealand's spectacular rescue of the Chatham Islands black robin, when only five individuals were left, offers another ray of hope for the po'ouli. Actually a flycatcher rather than a thrush like its American and European namesakes, the black robin was a common bird throughout the remote Chathams group until colonists arrived with cats and rats and cleared most of its scrub habitat. Researchers moved the last survivors to a safe island, manipulated the number of eggs that the black robins laid and enlisted related birds as foster parents. Robin numbers have grown to more than 200.

Biologists at the U.S. Interior Department's Pacific Island Ecosystems Science Center in Hawaii have favored a similar hands-on approach to saving the po'ouli. The plan is to find a nest and move the first clutch of eggs to the Peregrine Fund's new captive breeding facility on the island of Hawaii, where workers have reared and successfully released some common native forest birds and are now experimenting with a few endangered species that are not nearly as scarce as the po'ouli.

However, an intensive search for a po'ouli nest last spring came up empty-handed. Moreover, the Peregrine Fund itself is reluctant to accept po'ouli eggs. "We need more experience with other insectivorous honeycreepers before exposing po'ouli to the risks of egg transport, hand-rearing, imprinting and release," says William Burnham, the organization's president. "We can't afford even one mistake." Aggressive rat control, not captive breeding, is the best conservation strategy, he insists.

Wildlife workers currently use poison bait stations to kill rats, mongooses and other pred--ators in po'ouli habitat. But getting government approval for a helicopter broadcast of an effective rodenticide has been a slow process, in part because state officials fear a public backlash. Authorities want more studies. But, says Burnham, "We needed to do it months ago, before the start of this year's nesting season."

At the center of this tempest is the po'ouli, a stub-tailed bird about the size of a large chickadee and cryptically colored in shades of brown except for its black mask, which is unique in the honeycreeper clan. The po'ouli lives just below timberline on the 10,023-foot volcano in elfin forest, where the limbs of ohi'a lehua trees are wrapped in epiphytic mosses, lichens and ferns and the vegetation is saturated by as much as 550 inches of rain a year. Scientists hope that a few more po'ouli might survive in the lower and most inaccessible part of the Hanawi preserve.

Very little is known about po'ouli biology. Observers have watched the birds hop along tree limbs, tearing apart epiphytes and loose bark with their finchlike bills in search of snout beetles, spiders and other invertebrate prey. They also eat a lot of native land snails. The po'ouli nest is an open cup on a ohi'a lehua branch. The bird's clutch size apparently is two, although no one has ever seen intact eggs.

A PAIR of baby collared doves, each smaller than the length of a cotton bud, have become the latest in a sudden outbreak of deformed birds discovered by a wildlife sanctuary in Oxfordshire. The unprecedented increase in avian patients since the start of the year has left Penny Little of the Little Foxes sanctuary perplexed and alarmed.

Yesterday she appealed for sanctuaries and animal hospitals all over the country to send word if they too had experienced a similar sudden influx of malformed birds. "You have to ask: is this a syndrome such as we haven't seen before?" said Ms Little, who is also a vigorous campaigner against fox-hunting.

Earlier this year she was asked to care for a young sparrow born "with only little tiny frills" instead of wings. "We think she is going to have to live in a cage permanently, and we'll have to give her as good a quality of life as possible."

Next came a baby woodpigeon less than half the size it should have been, which is still being hand-reared. And on Friday the doves were brought to Little Foxes, having been found when a tree was felled.

"They were in the nest, and there's no way of knowing how many other deformed birds are out there undiscovered," said Ms Little. "I don't have statistics, but it feels to me like something is going on. These are all seed-eating birds, so my initial conclusion would be that there is some form of pesticide pollution going on."

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds had not heard of any other cases, although it sometimes took a while for information to come through from the field. Heavy-metal pollution or a change in diet had been blamed for an increase in bone deficiency in herons, he said, and could theoretically cause deformity in other birds - although doves did not live in the same environment or eat the same foods. "We would not be able to make a judgement until we've looked at the individual cases," he said. Any investigation would be carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology or the Environment Agency.

The increased use of garden pesticides has been blamed by some for the decline in house sparrows, whose numbers have fallen by 64 per cent since 1972. Naturalists fear that pesticides may have greatly cut insect numbers, removing a vital source of food for birds.

Last month the RSPB launched a national survey of the state of the house sparrow. It followed a campaign by The Independent, which is offering a pounds 5,000 prize to anyone who proves the reason why 9.6 million sparrows have been lost.

Theories include a form of suicidal depression, hunting by cats and magpies, and the Chernobyl disaster. As part of its survey of the countryside, the Government is carrying out a two-year programme of research into the decline of sparrows and starlings, whose numbers have also fallen.

Sophisticated or streetwise, poised or plallful, cats have long teased the imaginations of writers and painters into timeless tributes.

A cat may look at a queen-or a king, or you or me-and probably won't think too much of any of us. A properly humble human observer once summed it up, "A cat is a sovereign state with a tail." Apart from the incidental point that some of the most regal cats don't have tails, this epigram expresses pretty accurately the attitude of America's 20 million or so cats toward us people who think we are running the country. The fact seems to be that while a dog is usually willing to accept human beings as equals, any cat-from the disdainfully fluffed-up Persian to the mauled-up ruler of the alley jungles-is absolutely certain that people are inferior animals.

A lot of human beings have also subscribed to this cat's-eye view, and through the ages some of the most highly intelligent and civilized nations have deified and worshiped cats, undoubtedly to the satisfaction of all concerned. There are, indeed, a good many reasons why cats should assume a natural superiority. This can readilybe established by asking any honest man or woman who "owns" one.

A jogger runs along a sandy strip where the gentle lap of waves signals the meeting of sea and shore.

Up ahead, a family of diminutive shorebirds use their black-tipped yellow bills to prove for beetles, marine worms and other tasty invertebrates churned up by waves.

This particular jogger hardly notices the small flock of plovers running back and forth on the water-washed sand. As she approaches, the birds freeze, cry out, then scatter in all directions.

As the jogger's figure fades on the horizon, the mother plover frantically herds the straying chicks, and the whole family returns to the serious business of foraging. They must eat enough to build up strength for their long journey south.

Just as the chicks settle back into their feeding routine, two people searching for shells disturb the birds again, sending them off in another panic-stricken flight.

For humans, the crowding of once-pristine North American beaches seems merely a nuisance. For a type of shorebird called the piping plover, beaches packed with sunbathers, shell seekers, joggers and Frisbee players represent a lethal hazard. New research suggests that as the number of people on the beach swells, these and other shore-birds spend more time running or flying from humans and less time eating. While sompe piping plovers can weather the loss, many others succumb to starvation.

"When you increase the number of people, the [piping plovers] spend less time foraging," says Joanna Burger, an avian biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J. "Young birds can't spend enough time foraging to lay down enough fat before they migrate."

Some 200 bird species, including oystercathers, plovers, sandpipers, whimbrels and dowitchers, prefer beaches, mud flats, swamps, marshes or back bays along the North American coastline to inland areas. Piping plovers, Charadrius melodus, were so named for their melodious singing ability. The East Coast branch of the species nests on beaches from Maine to North Carolina in the spring and summer, heading south to wintering grounds from Florida to South America by early fall.

Piping plovers flourished along the Atlantic Coast through much of history, foraging undisturbed on vast stretches of sand. After World War II, however, human activity on the East Coast skyrocketed as developers scrambled to build condominiums, hotels and summer homes with oceanfront views. Many shorebirds deserted the prime vacation spots and moved to salt marshes or mud flats where they could forage freely.

Unfortunately, the piping plover won't feed in such muck, and thus must compete with people for space on the beach. During low tide, these birds scamper after each retreating wave, searching for bits of food in the wet sand.

Although their population once numbered in the thousands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1986 but the Atlantic Coast population of piping plovers on its list of threatened species. A survey conducted last year by the same agency indicated that only 739 nesting pairs remained on the East Coast -- a level that puts these birds in danger of extinction.

No one knows exactly what caused the precipitous decline, but most investigations have focused on the bird's vulnerable nesting site. The piping plover generally builds its shell-lined nest in a small depression in the sand between the dunes and the open water. Many wildlife biologists believe this practice puts the species in extreme danger from humans, who can inadvertently trample the nearly invisible, sand-colored eggs.

Burger, however, took a different tack with her plover research. Instead of focusing on nest sites, she decided to study how people affect the foraging behavior of the piping plover.

She began by observing piping plovers at several New Jersey beaches, including Brigantine Beach, a flat, sandy stretch backed by a belt of dunes, just north of Atlantic City. Starting in early May of 1985, Rutgers University graduate students walked a regular route down the beach, through the dunes and back along the bay. The students observed the birds five days a week for ten hours a day.

Whenever they found a flock of piping plovers, they stopped at a distance and watched the birds forage for a two-minute period, using binoculars to avoid frightening them. The observers then counted the number of people within 10 and 50 meters of the flock. During the two-minute study period, they used a stopwatch to note the seconds plovers spent looking for food. In addition, they noted how long the plovers exhibited alert behavior, in which the birds look up and about in response to a threat (such as an approaching human). Finally, the students recorded the time plovers spent running or flying from people.

Burger presented the New Jersey findings in the Winter 1991 JOURNAL OF COASTAL RESEARCH. "Overall, when more people were present, plovers spent more time running, flying and crouching," she told SCIENCE NEWS.

Like the human "snowbirds" who migrate to warm-weather spots with the first chill of autumn, piping plovers leave their northern breeding sites in late summer of early fall. The New Jersey study showed that people posed a problem for plovers during the breeding season; Burger wanted to find out whether human interference affected plovers who spend their winters in sunny Florida.

Until the Hancock Center started turning off its trademark bank of lights during bird migrations, up to 1,500 birds a night would die when they crashed into the skyscraper.

The Hancock has been dousing its ornamental lighting during spring and fall since the early 1980s, and four other downtown buildings have followed suit. But now the city and birding groups are planning to recruit other buildings.

Working at night, they're compiling a list in an effort to douse or dim nonessential lighting. "We're surveying every Loop building," said Suzanne Malec, deputy commissioner of the city's Department of Environment.

To birds flying north or south alongside the lake, city lights "are brighter than anything else on the horizon," said Jerry Garden, president of the Chicago Audubon Society. "And it's the brightness that draws the birds."

They apparently orient themselves by light and sometimes mistake artificial lighting for stars or the moon.

The ones that sing the sweetest are most at risk.

An amateur pilot, Garden has noticed that great blue herons, terns and other varieties cruise at 1,500 feet or higher, safely above skyscraper height. "But songbirds fly at anything from the ground up to 1,000 feet," he said.

Nobody knows how many confused birds fly into lighted buildings. But the Fatal Light Awareness Program of Toronto estimates that at least 100 million birds are killed each year by manmade structures.

On Oct. 7, 1954, 50,000 birds died when they followed the beam of a guide light at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia-right into the ground.

Besides urging that buildings use only minimal lighting during migration times, bird groups encourage homeowners to put bells on their cats or keep them indoors, put in native plants to provide habitat, and reduce use of pesticides or herbicides.

This is the first fall that 311 S. Wacker has turned off lights topping the distinctive superstructure. The lights earned it the nickname of the "birthday cake building." Chicago's fourth tallest edifice at 65 stories, 311 S. Wacker won't switch its rooftop illumination back on until mid-October.

"It's not good for our publicity, but it's the right thing to do," said the building's general manager, Roy Endsley.