A Thanksgiving Offering ?

Sunday morning. J and Kitty have gone off to church, Guy and his pal are still asleep downstairs after a night’s gaming on the X-Box and probably drinking my 12 percent strength beer and I’m just pottering around listening to the ‘Sunday Supplement’ on Sky, when I hear Coco our cat meowing. Nothing unusual in that in that she’s a very vocal cat but there was something different about her cries this time.

I looked over and there at the top of the stairs, presented by Coco and her mother, Bijou, was a nice warm, dead magpie and it was quite patently an offering. They did not tear it wing from wing like they usually do with the birds they catch, they just laid it on the floor and stood back, looks of feline pride on their little furry faces.

I praised the cats and then disposed of the bird in the usual manner (by throwing it into next door’s garden – see previous blog below) and then thought about how the cats managed to catch one of the cleverest birds around.

I’ve seen the magpies around here attack the cats and they’ve even tried to harass Shadow and distract him whilst one of them dives down and eats his food. As soon as they hear my windows open they’re off because they know that I shoot at them through these openings. They’re very, very clever birds but how, if they’re that clever are they caught by cats?

Now I’ve witnessed my cat in London sit motionless on top of the garden fence and simply reach out a paw and grab a passing, flying bird. Very impressive it was but magpies are a different breed altogether as my previous post relates. But I shed no tears for it or them – they might be clever but they’re also nasty pieces of work and the more of them the cats catch, the fewer gun pellets I’ll need to use!

http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/well-last-night-was-something-of.html