There are three reasons for phrasing the question this way — ignorance (in which case someone really believes that sheer
number of birds is the problem and the
cat comparison is
reasonable), sloppy phrasing (in which case the
cat comparison is a
reasonable way to avoid the other person inadvertantly misleading readers) or deliberate dishonesty (in which case the
cat comparison is again a legit way to prevent deliberate misleading).