There is an old joke
How does an elephant get down from a tree?
Sits on a leaf and waits until the Fall

One day as a kitten, Purrdy had charged up the buddleia after the sparrows – who were long gone by the time she reached them.  She looked around wondering where they had gone, when the branch she was sitting on, which was not very thick, snapped.

Purrdy gracefully descended to the ground, still sitting on the branch, and looked mildly puzzled at the scenery passing her eyes.  As she landed, still sitting on the branch, she gave a philosophical mental shrug and wandered off to chase a butterfly, or twig, or something.

Purrdy never learned that birds were smarter, and more agile than she was when it came to trees, and would be long moved out of reach by the time she arrived, and constantly would be going up and down branches after birds that just hopped to a safer branch as she got close.