It’s talking to birds. Trying to lure them in closer for the pounce. My old cat used to sit watching the birdfeeder for hours doing this exact thing.
“don’t mind me, I’m just another bird. I just don’t feel like flying.”
Mine would do something much like this, but for squirrels.
My cats do this all the time when looking at birds or squirrels out in the yard or hunting a bug inside the house, but I assumed it was them communicating with each other. “I got this one.”
Yep, some small prey creature(s) outside. It’s watching Cat TV 
I thought CatTV was the front-loading washing machine?
Yup, my cat does this all the time while lusting for the murder of birds.
I don’t think my cat has ever noticed the washing machine (though I kind of like watching it get started, myself . . . ahem). But a fish tank also qualifies.
This is called chittering. And yes, it’s adorable. And like most adorable cat behavior it’s meant to facilitate tasty tasty murder.
Lots of cats I’ve seen do this. Mostly it’s, “thing I want to kill is beyond my grasp”, but they tend to use it for particular things. My parents’ cat will watch birds intently, but only starts chittering when he sees a squirrel. Maybe it’s specifically for “thing I want to kill that I also hate.”
Mine would do this for bugs, which gets especially unpredictable when it’s inside the house…
Reminds me of the Dog Malfunction.
And you say you’ve owned a cat? They make their wee war cries and chitter when they see a bird they want to eat.
So it’s not normal to wake up and find the cat doing that at you?
Nah, you just look tasty…
My previous cat did this when watching birds from inside the house. So did my parents cat. My current cat doesn’t.
My former cats used to chitter from behind the screen door watching birds in the back yard, right up until the day they saw a hawk standing on the lawn holding down a starling, waiting to kill it. I swear the hawk was looking around making sure that any nearby cats saw, taunting them in that Gary Larson “Birds of Prey Know They’re Cool” kind-of-way.
The cats shut up pretty quickly once they saw it.
I remember visiting a college friend and on answering the door he shut it again saying ‘Just a minute , I need to lock the cat in the other room.’ That sounded a bit weird, but what the hell.
When I left 2 or 3 hours later I was half way down the path from his house when I heard a noise. I turned round and there was a snarling, hissing, claws-out monster doing its best to break through the front room window and kill me!
My cat will do this to me when I say his name…
Wait, what?!!?
My mom has complete glass French doors to her backyard, and her three cats do the chittering thing all the time.
However, if the boy cat sees any other neighborhood cat enter the patio “safe zone”, he will charge the door like a silverback gorilla. Audible thump and all.
