Monday 12 November 2012

Big Game Hunter

Pixie caught a fly this morning.
No sniggering, please, this is a momentous event.
She caught one back in the summer too.




Pixie longs to catch a swallow. She sits for hours - when she can spare the time from sleeping - crouched in the doorway of the shed, watching them swoop past. Now that the swallows are long gone, she has transferred her hopes to the kitchen window sill where she watches the bird table. She ticks loudly to herself in anticipation of how she will crunch their meagre bones when she has her wicked way.
I'm not holding my breath with anxiety on their behalf.

I don't know how much she can even see of the birds. I expect it's movement mostly, as she only has about 25% vision, poor little dote. I rescued her in Sligo Town when she was a kitten, but the damage was already done thanks to a dose of cat flu.
But she's a very happy cat, and she was extremely pleased with her kill.

Hobbes, however, doesn't pussy-foot around with flies.
Hobbes is a multiple-meal cat
He is also bad and wicked and impervious to threats.
We opened the back door this morning to find him just finishing off his first breakfast.
Having eaten everything else, he was pointedly crunching the wing feathers.
It breaks your heart how hungry my cats are.












Poor dove.
Fortunately, Hobbes sleeps all day on the kitchen chair, because he knows he gets chucked out at night.
I chuck all the cats - except Pixie - out at night just so that they will sleep all day on the kitchen chairs. It gives the birds a bit of a breather, and hopefully gives the rats sleepless nights.
One thing is sure - the cats can't wait to climb into bed after breakfast.
But even so, the list of sins against Hobbes's name gets longer and longer.

Hobbes and Popsicle catching up




THIS WEEK: 
In celebration of Writing from the Edge's first birthday, 
I will be having a wonderful Giveaway! 
Don't miss it!

4 comments:

  1. I read this on Monday and tried to comment, but was refused, so here I ma back again for another go.
    I don't think your page likes the ipad.
    MasterB is a great flycatcher too. He has yet to be seen catching a bird. He has been seen with two dead ones but the court is out as to who did the killing. He has caught shrews and mice, and grasshoppers (lots of grasshoppers) and one frog. Like Pixie he sleeps indoors. The foxes catch pigeons and pluck them fastidiously, leaving heaps of feathers on the grass.
    At least Hobbes eats his kill. It's when they kill and leave that it upsets me most. Though i am not sure about flies.

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    1. Yes, Pixie has been seen with pre-killed trophies too, but she's only managed the flies so far.Thankfully she doesn't seem interested in eating them! Our cats in London used to catch endless frogs and bring them into the house. I think they taste horrid, as they never ate them. Eventually we had a designated 'frog box' into which they were put and then we'd relocate them to the park at the end of the road. I hope they didn't mind - it seemed better than risking them being caught again and again!

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  2. Freyja has just tried to make her way into the front door with a dead bird (I can't see it too well as I'm not opening the door wide enough so she can sneak in!). Scout is our queen of hunters - we usually get at least one shrew per day from her - although she does tend to eat the mice.

    We've had a young hare dead and the door and a couple of bats (hate to see both of these dead!), which we think are our largest male Vader - I reckon he's the only one with strength to haul the hare to the back door!

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    1. I don't know how there are any shrews left, the poor little mites - I constantly find dead ones, too. Every now and again I manage to save one from the jaws of death and relocate it - also mice and birds. If you can get hold of the cat straight away, the prey is often unharmed at that stage. I hate them catching these creatures - but while I was away in the summer my husband found 'the biggest rat he had ever seen' dead on the terrace, so I guess you can't have one without the other. We've got three demon killers, so I don't know who to credit for the rat! Thank God, the only rats we have seen have been dead ones - long may it continue!

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