A-hunting we will go ...

Something very strange has been happening lately – have you noticed? The days keep getting longer and the nights are shrinking. I don’t understand. It used to be pitch black by the time I had finished my dinner.  I was able to go out straight afterwards under cover of darkness to explore and hunt, invisible to all. Now there’s all that bright, open space around me – very unsettling.

For a while I walked from one window to the next, hoping to see reassuring darkness from one of them, but no: daylight in all directions!  I voiced my dismay to Mum and Dad, but even they seemed quite powerless to do anything about it.

After a few days of worry and frustration, I finally decided to venture out regardless, scary though it was. Fortunately, the increasing light and warmer air have brought Mum outside to work in the garden. With her nearby, I feel a lot safer, because I can run back to her whenever danger threatens, weave through her legs, rub my face against hers (she is often conveniently on her hands and knees) and tell her what I’ve been up to.

Except she doesn’t always understand me. Like the time when I met a huge, black tomcat near the garage, who hissed at me when I said hello and looked very fierce. I had no option but to run back to Mum to alert her to the intruder, but it was no use: she just cooed at me happily and went on digging. By the time I’d crept back carefully to where the black tom had been, he had moved right up to our house and grew really angry when he saw me again. He hissed viciously, shot his enormous claws out and went for my nose! Ouch! I beat a fast retreat through my cat door into the safety of the house, only to find that the black monster had followed me inside! Can you believe that? I couldn’t at first; I was quite speechless. When I found my voice again, I yelled for Dad (Mum still being out in the garden, oblivious to my plight). Thank goodness Dad heard me and came into the kitchen to investigate.

You should have seen how quickly the black tom disappeared when he saw Dad! He couldn’t get out fast enough – coward! Dad ran after him, I ran after Dad, and we both yelled at him never to dare show his face in our house again.

I was a bit shaken afterwards. It turned out I had some skin missing from my nose and a wound on my leg. Mum washed it all clean with salty water and told me to be more careful in future.  I promised I would and was quite nervous about going out again in the daylight for fear of meeting my enemy again, but he hasn’t come back. By and by, I’ve ventured  into the field next door again, caught a couple of voles and a small bird and have generally settled down to the realities of daytime hunting.

Mum didn’t seem very pleased when I brought her the bird. She told me to pick on something my own size. Next time I went out, I stalked and caught a rabbit! It was so big, I had a job dragging it back into our garden. When I finally laid it out on the front lawn, even Tammy had to admit I had made a masterful kill. I let her sniff the rabbit for a bit, but made it clear that it was mine to eat. In the end I couldn’t finish it all, but a bird came to help, and between us we made a clean job of it. I guess that means I’m a fully-fledged hunter now. Who would have thought?

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