Day 233 - Death By Cat

deadvol3

Cats are great and all, but they do have a bad habit of assuming you want the same things that they do. 

Anna was away overnight, so I got up and fed the cats before work this morning.  They were both hassling for breakfast, and once I put their bowls down, they went after it with gusto.

Not five minutes later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a cat wretching, and found Loz being sick in the doorway to the lounge.  I shooed her outside and set about cleaning it up.

Not five minutes later again, and I sat in my chair briefly to have a slurp of coffee...as I turned round to stand up, I found this poor, dead little vole slumped on the carpet behind me...

No cat to be seen.  

Picking him up, it was immediately obvious that he was very freshly dead.  As I took him out to the garden (for the crows), there was Loz, back on the hunt again around the borders of the lawn. 

She must have gone out and chanced upon the vole, and quickly taken it...as it was an easy kill, she then decided to present it to me before nipping out to pick up another one...

I know she's just a cat being a cat, and that the local vole population remains as healthy as ever, despite Loz's voracious kill rate...but I still feel bad every time, and rescue them when I can. 

It was too late for this little one...if it's any consolation, at least in death it provided me with a photo of the day (once my brain kicked into gear).

Voles are the most common prey for Loz, but there have occasionally been more impressive (sort of) kills.

Once or twice she's brought a baby rabbit home, looking immensely pleased with herself.

And one memorable day two years ago, I got home to find spots of blood here and there on the carpet, and this very dead weasel in the middle of the rug in the lounge...

deadweeze1

Weasels commonly take prey such as large rabbits, many times their size...they're ferocious warriors - it must have been quite a battle!

Beautiful animal, in any case...I still have guilty pangs about his unfortunate demise...

Still, the price of every life, and all that...

:-/