Cats

Wildlife nighttime video...
Badgers all night (3) & obsessed with the swing cloths
They also dug up a lot of my garden, overturned and dug out my plant pots, they raided my wormery, and Ma Badger looks pregnant to me...you can see Ma &Pa Badger & their son Boy Badger (he looks a tiny bit smaller than Pa). Pa Badger is the one who is usually interested in the swing.
1 min 39 secs
https://youtu.be/_OYk94KpUvg?si=0ZE5Q9USA3kYASry


No creative as such today, but a moment caught on camera.
BETRAYAL says Midnight
Why?
Some of you may remember, I spoke some days ago (a week or so) of blood all over the kitchen, of something that might have been killed in my kitchen, but no body. Like maybe a large rat.
Well, Merlin, who I call Kitchen Cat, who has taken up residence in my kitchen since last year, appeared traumatised after that event, and will now only sleep actually in my bungalow itself.
Yesterday I was having a nap in my bed, and I opened my eyes to see this....

My iPad was lying on my bed, so I took a quick photo.
BETRAYAL said Midnight's eyes.
Merlin has never got on my bed before. His stoic expression is saying to me that he's testing the waters to see if he can get away with this... or if I will accept this.

Midnight charged off, completely upset and would not talk to me for a couple of hours...
Merlin was upset I told him to get off the bed. I didn't shout. I just simply said no. And so he ran off.

It was a couple of hours before Midnight forgave me...

And I am trying to explain to Merlin he cannot get on my bed, but he can go anywhere in the bungalow, as much as a cat understands any of that. But he understood from my soft tone of voice that things were okay. And I gave Merlin some treats.

Midnight does not respond to treats of food. He just responds to you talking to him in a soft voice telling him is a lovely cat..

Merlin has been around since 2019 when some new people moved in this road. They had two cats, These two cats ran in and out of their front door when they had it open. But one day these people left. And they left both their cats behind. One found a home two doors down. And the ginger cat, I have now named Merlin, started living in my garden and on my swing, but I could never actually approach him or touch him. I fed him outdoors although he would often run away from me.

He lived on the swing in very harsh winter temperatures below freezing, but I could not persuade him to come indoors, I realised once I have the trail cameras up that he was living and sleeping every night on that swing. It was a long time before he came into the kitchen and would sleep on the cat bed on the floor, but he always ran out every time I went in the kitchen...

There was something else I noticed from when he was sleeping on the swing, and the trail cameras were recording his movement off the swing, Every night at exactly 5 am, he would leave the swing and he would not return until about an hour and a half or two hours later. I wondered why? I thought, maybe he found someone to feed him at that time of morning early hours. But it wasn't, it was something I find very sad.

And it breaks my heart, every time I see him. At 5 am he goes to his old house where his owners had lived and sits on the wall and looks straight at the front door and he sits there solidly for an hour and a half to 2 hours. The new people don't come out and feed him, he just sits there, then when his hour and a half is up he walks across the road comes back to mine and asks to be fed . He has done this every single day since his owners left in about 2020-21 I think it was. He was there this morning in the rain waiting again..

Do people know what they do to pets when they abandon them...

Merlin still won't allow me to pick him up but I can touch him. I can check his body is okay and I can stroke him. Midnight will tolerate Merlin taking his food. But I do give them both separate dishes in separate rooms. Merlin eats his own and then comes to the room I'm feeding Midnight and sits beside Midnight who is still slowly eating... Midnight looks at me, I say well if you let him eat the rest of your food, I'll give you some more in a bit. And Midnight sits down and lets Merlin dives into his dish.

But Merlin being on my bed in that photo was just a step too far for poor Midnight.

Have a good day.

EDIT: A bit added. It is nearly the time of midnight. I just went to the kitchen to make a flask hot tea, and here is Merlin on the couch in the front room. I was hoping to get a pic of him sound asleep, but he heard me and woke up!