Studies of cat trophic behaviour can be based on collections of the prey brought home or the prey eaten by cats (i.e. analyses of scat/gut contents). Both methods involve biases with respect to palatability, prey size and assessment of hunting rates. Furthermore, these methods are often used on different groups of cats (i.e. house‐based vs. feral), thus results are difficult to compare. In the present study, cats from the same area (rural areas in central Poland) were studied by both methods: prey brought home and prey eaten (scat and gut analyses). Both methods identified mammals as the most frequent prey (followed by birds). However, differences occurred in the percentages of the four main vertebrate groups brought home versus eaten by cats: reptiles tended to be brought home, whereas amphibians tended to be eaten. No such difference was found for birds and mammals. Second, the relative proportions of presumably more palatable and presumably less palatable prey differed. The relative proportions of mice and voles (the latter eaten more frequently) and the relative proportions of soricomorphs and rodents (the latter eaten more frequently) were different. Finally, small prey items (i.e. invertebrates) were recorded incompletely for the brought‐home method. Overall, the prey‐brought‐home method underrepresented small prey and underestimated the predation rate for cats, whereas the prey‐eaten method was less likely to record unpalatable prey. We thus recommend to combine these two methods to obtain fuller and truer assessment of cat predation.

The threat that domestic cats pose to wildlife has gained increased recognition by researchers and conservationists, and in this study, we investigated the seasonal variability and the effects of environment type (rural vs. urban) on the prey composition of free-ranging house cats in Poland. We analysed the variability in 307 monthly prey samples of different prey items killed by cats and brought to their owners (i.e., prey brought home by cats living in one home in one month) between 2002 and 2007 at 26 rural and urban sites. The variability in prey composition over time was analysed using additive models and canonical correspondence analysis. In total, we recorded 1348 prey items. Rodents were the most common prey in both environments, but shrews and reptiles were killed by cats more often in the rural environment while birds (mainly sparrows and pigeons) were more common in the urban environment. Additionally, prey composition changed seasonally. The pooled number of vertebrates killed by cats was largest in September and lowest in January, and rodents were killed most often in September, shrews and birds in June, and reptiles in April. The seasonal variation in the prey composition of cats was relatively high in the rural environment and more stable in the urban environment. Prey composition seemed to follow temporal and spatial variations in prey availability, thus confirming a facultative feeding strategy in free-ranging house cats.

Examples of interspecific interactions have been described for mammalian predators, but less is known regarding disturbances of native predator guilds by domestic predators. We investigated intraguild interactions among three opportunistic predators (dog ( Canis lupus familiaris L., 1758), cat ( Felis catus L., 1758), and red fox ( Vulpes vulpes (L., 1758)) co-occurring in the extensive farmlands of central Poland. Their space use was monitored using tracking stations distributed in field and forest plots along a distance gradient from buildings and analyzed using the occupancy-modeling framework. For all three species occupancy decreased with increased distance from buildings, although for the fox the pattern was relatively weak. The occurrence of cats at the stations was higher in the forest than in the field; for fox and dog, there was a strong variation between study plots. For all three predators, the probability of detection was higher during the night than during the day and varied between the seasons; however, the exact patterns were species-specific. The presence of one predator was also linked to the presence of the other two species—generally, a given species was detected more frequently in the absence of the other two species. We recorded spatiotemporal niche segregation among the three species. We conclude that interspecific antagonistic interactions and differences in foraging ecology are the main drivers shaping co-occurrence of the three species in the agriculture landscape.

Differences in the frequency with which bats feature in the diet of tawny owls Strix aluco were studied, as these relate to types of habitat occupied (i.e. urban park, suburban forest, non‐urban land outside forest, and non‐urban forest as divided into forest edge or forest interior). The pellets collected at 152 sites in central and north‐eastern Poland in the years 1990–2008 comprised 17,908 items of vertebrate prey, of which 115 (0.64%) were bats. Tawny owls caught 11 bat species, most frequently Nyctalus noctula, Plecotus auritus and Eptesicus serotinus. The analysis revealed habitat‐related differences to the proportions of all tawny owl prey items accounted for by bats, being the highest in urban habitats (2.0%) and suburban forests (0.8%), and the lowest in forest interiors (0.1%). Bat frequency in the diet of tawny owls correlated negatively with that of other mammals pooled together with amphibians. Myotis nattereri and “aerial hawkers” (vs. “gleaners”) were taken significantly more often in habitats associated with a large city (parks and suburban forests), and P. auritus in non‐urban habitats.