Brightly-coloured ruffs stop cats killing so many birds - providing a quieter, snazzier alternative to a bell

The rainbow collars save birds while making moggies look like Elizabethan jesters

Putting brightly coloured, bulky ruffs onto cats could cut down the number of birds killed by the feline predators.

Cats are responsible for killing up to 275 million prey animals in the UK each year - 55 million of which are birds.

The Birdsbesafe - a two-inch wide stripy collar that juts out from the cat's neck horizontally - is designed to reduce this figure.

Songbirds are known for having good colour vision, but aren't so good at spotting the muted tones of cat fur.

The rainbow collar alerts prey with good colour vision - birds and also frogs - that a cat is nearby, giving them time to fly (or hop) away and avoid the jaws (and paws) of death.

The accessory was designed by Nancy Brennan, a lifelong nature-lover and environmentalist.

She was concerned by the number of birds her cat George was catching in her garden in Vermont, so attached a tube of bright fabric to his existing collar - the number of kills immediately fell, without having to use a noisy bell.

While it might look like a novelty pet costume, the Birdsbesafe has been put to the test by researchers in the USA and Australia.

In the most recent Australian study, it was found to reduce the number of birds captured by up to 54%. It didn't make a difference to the number of mice and other mammals caught - as their colour vision isn't as good.

The collar - in a rainbow pattern - was tested on 114 pet cats owned by 82 people over the course of two years.

After the study, some 77% of owners said they’d continue to use the Birdsbesafe to prevent bird slaughter.

The results echo an earlier study carried out in the USA, which reported an 87% reduction in the number of birds captured.

That study strongly recommended use of the collar for "owned and feral cats, primarily in spring". Although how you capture and collar a feral cat remains to be seen.

In all studies, the cats wearing the collars looked 100% more jaunty.