Autumn, and a young cat's mind turns to hunting leaves

 

Autumn. The nights are getting cold, although no sign of frost yet, and the early morning joggers and dog walkers are appearing in beanies and gloves. My maple tree, which I planted in the summer of 20-21, is in full autumn livery, although the oaks and elms in the park over the road are only just starting to turn.

I watched my kitten this morning while she was watching a leaf blow along the verandah. My cats are strictly indoor cats, so Suki is only ever going to be able to dream about pouncing on skittering leaves, in the same way as she will only ever dream about catching a flame robin or a crimson rosella or one of the little skinks that sun themselves on the wooden decking of the verandah. Such is life, Suki.

It doesn’t always follow that indoor cats don’t get to hunt. My cats have access to an outdoor enclosure via a catflap in the kitchen door. I once came back from a week away, during which time the cats were fed twice daily by a wonderful local girl who just adores animals – and they adore her. Anyway, I came in after being away for a week, called out to tell the cats I was home and dumped my bag in my bedroom. Later, when I went in to unpack, I noticed that one of my jumpers was on the floor. I picked it up to discover a disembowelled and decapitated rat under it. The head was on the other side of the room.

Just last week a bird got stuck in the flue. I could hear it scratching and flapping in there but I couldn’t remove the baffle plate inside the wood heater to free it. I left it to its fate and went off to golf. When I got home some hours later, the bird – a starling – had found its own way around the baffle plate and was inside the fire box. Good, I thought, I can get it out. I threw a tea towel over it and lifted it out, intending to free it outside, but the bird, in one panicked movement, freed itself from the tea towel before I got it to the door. Grover, one of my adult cats, promptly pounced on it and took his prize out to the enclosure to finish the job.

Well, I suppose the starling had lived a full and useful life as a starling before the misadventure that took it down my flue and ultimately to Grover’s jaws. Hopefully a lesson to the other starlings that live rent-free in my roof.

Suki, meanwhile, is learning to be a cat. She tags along behind the big cats and copies what they do. This is not always a good thing, especially in the case of Merlin the House Panther, who, at 8.5 kilos is huge and prowls around the kitchen bench looking for morsels of food, like hamburgers, whole chickens, loaves of bread and unguarded cakes. Clearly this why Merlin is 8.5 kilos. He doesn't bother with trifling things like vagrant rodents or suicidal starlings. Merlin is more interested in food that doesn't move. But Suki just wants that leaf on the verandah.

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