Friday, November 6, 2009

The faces of furtive felines

Continuing from the previous post where I shared one sweet puppeh that we met in Kentucky... here are some felines that I have "met" in recent years. I love dogs a whole big bunch, but cats rock. Yes, they can be sneaky and stand-offish, but when they decide they actually want to befriend you for a minute or two... oh, I just LOVE it. Purrrr, headbonk, nose kiss, etc. (You other cat people out there know what I'm talking about!)

During a Women in the Outdoors event several years ago I encountered a pair of cats soon after I checked in. They were pretty skittish, and didn't really want to come close, so my telephoto lens came in very handy for capturing them.


This was the first cat to catch my eye. I couldn't resist turning this shot into black & white.


Soon after I spotted the first cat, this one came trotting up.


They mostly hung out together. The cat at the bottom of the picture was definitely the more outgoing of the two.


Whoops! What got your attention, kittehs?


A few more quick snaps, capturing them individually.




I don't think they stuck around too much longer after this.


You may remember this fluffball from a few months ago. She (?) popped up in a post after I got back from the Midwest Birding Symposium. She was one of many cats that we saw in the town of Lakeside, Ohio.


When you are attending a birding symposium, the last thing you want to see is a big band of cats running loose around the town hosting the event. Unfortunately, though, that's what we encountered our first evening in town. Some cats seemed to be pets, belonging to a particular house, like that grey and white kitty, but there was also a large grouping of cats who seemed to be roamers. The roamers were pretty leery of humans (except, we learned later, the two humans who feed them), and they kept their distance. They did not respond to the typical noises one might make to call a cat in.


Except for this little dude. He was cautious, but curious. We almost got to pet him, but not quite. Poor thing with the cross eyes (although that characteristic doesn't show up so well in these photos)! You may also notice the notch in the left ear. In examining my photos, I noticed that at least 2 other black cats had a notch in the same ear. I don't know if someone did this on purpose as a way of "tagging" them, or if it was a genetic thing.


Not only do I like me some cats, but I love me some black cats. We have owned 2 black cats, and they were as different from each other as night and day. One of them passed on and the other moved to another home when my respiratory system became too overwhelmed to cope. I miss them bunches.

6 comments:

Kelly said...

...ahhhh....I just want to scoop them up and give them hugs and a pat! Before my nearly hairless, Bip Kitty, I had two black DSH cats (Theobald and Mikasa). I love black cats! They are always so sweet. The orange tabbies are adorable...

Erica Houskeeper said...

I just came across your wonderful blog and fell in love with these sweet photos of the kitties. You're so right, cats rock (especially black cats!!).

The dog photos are great too. He looks very comfortable in front of the camera!

Sentimental Sapsucker said...

The first kittens (at BOW) look so sad! Those photos are beautiful.
Ear-clipping, as on the black cats at Lakeside, generally indicates the cat has been neutered/spayed. It is done in TNR (trap-neuter-release) programs with feral cats. I'm glad to see someone is doing something to control that population.

Heather said...

Kelly - Hee hee, I know what you mean. I like those names of your black cats - very interesting. Our two black cats were named Deacon and Midnight (although we always called her Midtown). The curious little fellow in this post, with that little patch of white on the chest, reminds me a lot of our Deacon.

Erica - Hello, and thanks so much for visiting my blog! I will come over and check yours out as well. Thanks for your comments. It's good to hear from another cat lover.

S.S. - Thanks for the ear-clipping info. I didn't know that, but it makes sense.

Gabrielle said...

The darker of the two orange kittehs has totally captured my heart. Shhh, don't tell my cat!

Heather said...

Gabrielle - I know what you mean, I like that kitty a whole lot, too. You just want to pick him (or her) up and snuggle, right? I hope your cat wasn't watching over your shoulder as you typed that!