Cats and birds

As long as there are cats and birds in the world I can never be completely bored.  I was sitting here when I saw two collar doves mobbing a magpie - the magpie settled in our crab apple tree - then a second one joined.  They hopped around avoiding the collar doves, who after a while returned to their nest in the roof.  The magpies jigged up and down in the tree, hopping about, one sitting in the sun, with the light catching the iridescent feathers in the tail... they stayed there for a while, squawking and clucking - until I saw some violent movement, and saw that Tac - a local cat was storming up the tree towards them.   He was halfway up but they moved to the top branches, and he clambered about looking for a way of getting up to the top level.  The magpies taunted him, until he made the leap up to the next section - one flew off, the other moved to the thinnest outermost branches of the tree.  From there he seemed to be teasing Tac, daring him out to the branches that would not bear him.   Tac boldly advanced, benefiting from all the crossing branches to make his way across to the magpie, but couldn't quite reach him - he flashed his tail furiously until the magpie flew off.  Tac then began to retreat gingerly, he could easily have fallen between the twigs - and was dithering about how to take his next step, when he noticed another cat at the foot of the tree.   Furious to see "his" territory encroached on, he found a renewed celerity and sped down the tree, leaping from branch to branch to see off the usurper.

I should be grateful to our neighbour Julian for feeding cats in his front garden, it provides an endless cat circus - not always this exciting, but there is usually some cat life to be observed.