Wildlife in the Yard

Here's one of the things that's really nice about living where we do now. We see lots of wildlife in our yard. And yes, we cats see it. Jackson came in yesterday and reported about three things he saw (I'm not quite at the stage where I'm going out into the catio.)

Jackson has really gotten into the catio thing. He's the "wildest" of us, so man, he was pretty upset when he couldn't go out for three days while the house was being painted.

The catio returned to its spot after the house was painted

Dude. You didn't go out for three MONTHS before that.

Give 'em an inch....and they'll take the whole catio.

Mommee has put blankets in a couple of wooden boxes that are part of the catio, so Jackson was out there yesterday, chilling in the nice warm catio box and watching the world go by.

So what did he see? In reverse order of interest:

A hummingbird. It did it's flitting thing and moved on.

Some quail. These are new for us. They hung around for while, making sure none of their appendages were close to the catio. They're pretty funny, they move really fast kind of in a pack, and make a cute little chirrup noise. And those head bangles! What's THAT about? A way to grab them in a hurry?

A pack of quail

The best sighting of all - a SQUIRREL! (Not Huxley.) Squirrels know how to make life miserable for cats - they are AWESOME! The ones out here are fluffy and fat, and have tails longer than their bodies. They use that tail to flirt and let catio cats know they're out of reach.

They're also very fast, and hard to catch. Jackson said he spent a lot of time watching that squirrel, especially when it jumped from a regular tree to a palm tree, and then from that palm tree onto a neighboring palm tree - practicing flying squirrel stunts. Jackson's paws were twitching while he described it. I hope he was thinking about playing "Flying Squirrel."

Snarky Squirrel

All the stories that Jackson tells are great. So do I get brave and go out to catio myself, so I can have my own stories? Will that take anything away from Jackson? I don't want him to feel like I'm trying to push into this important part of his life. But if I'm playing it safe in the kitchen cave, maybe that's not so good, either.

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment. Inquiring cat minds want to know.

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