We have three cats and three birds. The cats are all older, and each has gone through a phase when we first got them of being alarmingly fascinated by the birds... although at the same time somewhat frightened of them. Over time they have learned to be mostly bored.
Our approach is that we don't have the birds out of cage unless they are closely supervised, but we don't lock the cats away either, we just stay with the birds and keep an eye out. We do have our birds flight feathers trimmed to an extent that they can make graceful landings and even sometimes fly from the cage top to me sitting at my desk, but cannot get from one room to the next, so it is relatively easy to keep tabs on them. The cats are only one factor in keeping them trimmed --- there are so many potential hazards in our house that having the birds freely able to roam it without human supervision would be far too risky for my taste.
So when the birds are out of cage, they are supervised. In addition, during the night and when we are out of the house, not only are the birds in their cages with the doors securely closed, but the door to the room where the cages reside is closed.
We do avoid giving feather toys to the cats, and we don't encourage them to approach the birds. The closest thing we've had to incident was the GCC getting down off his cage and chasing the cat. The cat ran away.
One thing about cats is that they don't tend to just pounce without warning, they tend to stalk, observe, stalk... if they start to exhibit hunting behavior you can usually see what is going on and stop it.
With a kitten you have a prime opportunity to teach it that the bird is a family member, not a toy or a snack. Our oldest cat was raised with a bird and he shows absolutely no desire to hunt them at all. Just make sure the kitten has plenty of opportunity to play away from the birds, and don't encourage any kind of stalking behavior around them. Curiosity is OK, but the rule should be watch from a distance, don't approach.
