This is the little beastie from next door who looms around the family home and garden, attempting to attack the nesting blackbirds - driving them away in the process, twice last year - peeing on our nooshies grave, and suddenly turning up in the window like some kind of feline version of Michael Myers, scaring my mother witless.
This little lady is the reason my folks will have to be very careful about where they situate the bird box I bought them. She's an expert climber, so the box will go on a wall. The good news is that fledgling great tits - the leading candidate to use the box I reckon - stay in the branches and don't scuttle around on the ground like young blackbirds.
I remember when she first arrived next door, she was all sweetness and light, and loved to be stroked and rub up against your legs. Then she started getting haughty when Nooshie got ill, and lording it over the garden, although even a fit-addled Noo-noo was able to chase her off. Then we caught her attacking the blackbird nest, shinning up the pergola, and we gave her a good shouting at.
As soon as she sees any of us now, she slinks off like the naughty cat she is. But while we aren't looking, she's out there, pottling and widdling, and upsetting the birds. She has a brother, a black cat with a tail like a red squirrel, that just sits on the fence and my stepfather evils through the kitchen window while waiting for a passing witch to pick him up.
We love all cats. We really do. Except those two.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.02.16
