Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Squirrels And A Close Squeak

by admin - 14:21 on 05 March 2013

Quiet days ended with a vengeance today, thanks to Pandora.

Our bigger kitten has cast off her cat-flap caution and is making great use of the feline door. Willow has still to grasp that she can leave The Rural Retreat through it, as well as enter, while Maia continues to be unimpressed by the whole thing. The fact that her generous proportions barely made it through on the one occasion that she did use the flap may have something to do with it.

But Pandora has no qualms whatsoever about flappery, which could be bad news for garden wildlife. The seven-month-old tabby terror has already despatched a mouse and a brace of voles; today she attempted to do the same to a great tit.

Matchgirl and I were alerted when the small game hunter entered the cottage with even greater than usual speed. A brief glance confirmed that she carried a mouthful of shocked birdlife.

The moggy was grabbed by Matchgirl and carried outside where efforts to make her drop her victim proved fruitless, even when the tit recovered its senses enough to peck the offending puss on the nose. Pandora simply growled at us, the translation along the lines of: "This is my flying vole. You get your own."

Nothing could be done so we crossed our fingers and put the feisty feline on the grass. The great tit was in luck: Pandora hurried away but made the careless decision to get a better grip on her quarry. Two bouts of fluttering kept it just ahead of some fearsome teeth, after which the escapee made it into the top of the bushes and, following a quick breather, away. Just a few feathers and lots of dignity were left behind.

Will Pandora learn from her mistake? Time will tell.

There was even more action a short while later when I made my first solo visit to Squirrel James' secret hide, somewhere in the Black isle. His stunt squirrel arrived before I'd finished distributing nuts and peanut butter and at least two more were in evidence once I'd secreted myself behind the camouflaged facade.

Much feeding was observed, and several noisy squirrel chases, but I'd have seen more if James hadn't designed his hide for use by midgets – an unfathomable decision as he's almost as tall as me. His bijou country residence is too small to stand in and two carefully positioned planks block all sight lines when would-be snappers make use of his camping chairs.

Fortunately, I'd planned ahead and not only brought my tripod but also my right-angle viewfinder. This meant I could kneel and avoid neckache, although I'm still tempted to take a hacksaw with me on my next visit (if I'm allowed one).

Much snappery ensued, of which six snaps passed an unforgiving quality control. I'll post the other three tomorrow. You can find them on Flickr if that's too long a wait.

Add your comment

Your Name


Your Email (only if you are happy to have it on the site)


Your Comment - no HTML or weblinks


Enter this number in the box below and click Send - why?Unfortunately we have to do this to prevent the system being swamped by automated spam