Dinner Bell

 

We've been adopted by one of the neighborhood cats, and I've been trying to get her to come when I make a non-verbal cat-call (if there is a word for that sound, I don't know it). She must not have been nearby because I didn't hear her footfalls in the leaves in the neighbor's yard, or even a meow to let me know she was on the way. It was last call, though, so I set out some food in the hope she would get it before the raccoons found it.

No such luck.

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Interspecies Envoy

 

I placed the full bird bath saucer on the ground to see what I might catch (and also because I was afraid raccoons would pull it down), but other than the neighborhood cat (who did not drink), the only visitors have been a couple of late-night raccoons. The camera trap has caught birds bathing in little plant-pot saucers in the past, but I have yet to catch a bird ever using the bird bath, which has been in our yard since 2002! It has sentimental value to my wife, however, so we've kept it around. And like I say, the raccoons seem to like it. Unfortunately I have to empty it periodically to clear out the mosquito larvae. 

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Yard Cat

This neighborhood cat is just the right blend of wild and domestic. She spends all her time outdoors but enjoys human company (especially if it involves ear-scratching).

Sometimes the wildlife camera actually does capture wildlife. It's pretty rare that a raccoon makes a daytime appearance, though. Cheeky.

The cat likes to sleep in several places, mostly at either of my next-door neighbors' yards (using the term "yard" very loosely). Sometimes she wants to be in the sun, other times she'll opt for the shade.

Lately, though, she decided to take her cat-naps directly in front of the wildlife camera, resulting in about 400 frames per day that look like this.

And this.

Sometimes the raccoon will saunter through, only to be followed minutes later by the cat, who I'm pretty sure is afraid of raccoons, and probably for good reason.

Kit-Kat, aka Fuzz, aka Coco.

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KitKat

KitKat doesn't know I have to go to work most days. She just comes by whenever she's in the mood. I believe her owner (to the extent she is "owned") lives down the block, but she has been dropping by my back yard for a few years. A bag of Iams kibble lasts several months since I only feed her when we cross paths. Sometimes she's waiting for me in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. I like to keep a trail cam out back to keep tabs on when she and other backyard denizens come and go.

Sometimes the cam captures my wife, and this time her embroidery handiwork goes perfectly with the ambient scene.

So KitKat's 12:30 visit lasted about an hour, until she gave up. But she came back at 3 o'clock determined to wait it out at the top of the stairs. 

After about 15 minutes she needs a little stretch.

And sometimes the cam catches her making a funny expression on her way to grooming herself. She waited a little more than an hour before finally giving up -- just a few minutes before I finally got home. Too bad cats can't text.

Sometimes I feed her when I get home, then forget to bring the bowl back inside. Other neighborhood cats are onto this fact.

And not all the neighborhood cats are cats.

Here's KitKat trying to catch the early bird special, snoozing a little while she waits, and...

...Reward! To the right is the door to the storage area / laundry room / garage, and where I keep my bike. I always check to see if KitKat is out on the stoop before I head to work in the morning and again when I get home. Sometimes she'll be there almost every day for a while, and other times she doesn't show up for a week or more. 

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The Cat Food Caper

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I started putting food out for a neighbor's cat after noticing one day while I was petting him that he was very skinny. Figuring a hungry cat is going to bring more hell on birds than a full cat, I decided to put out a little kibble in what passes for my back yard. 

The skinny cat's name is Ren. He's black-and-white and full of personality. Often when the neighbors take their frisky young German shepherd for a walk, Ren follows them. And I don't mean for just a few steps. He'll follow them on a long walk around the neighborhood, ducking for cover here and there, then catching up again. Sometimes the dog will playfully pounce toward Ren, and Ren will return the pounce, taking no guff. If Ren encounters someone else walking their dog down the sidewalk, he sits on his haunches and stares them down. The dog-walker usually crosses the street to pass. I watched out my living room window late one night as Ren did the same thing with a huge raccoon. They had a quick boxing match before going their separate ways.

So back when I started doing this I put the trail camera out back to see if Ren would find and eat the cat food. I found that he did in fact find and eat it, and on a couple of occasions he would even be waiting for me when I set it out in the morning. However, two other neighborhood cats also got in on the free lunch -- a small, short-haired black cat, and a large, long-haired gray cat. (Squirrels and birds seemed to ignore the cat food.) Using the clock on the trail camera, I took notes on when each cat showed up. Ren and the black cat came by every day, usually multiple times. The long-haired cat showed up too rarely to set a pattern, but Ren and the black cat invariably came during the day, probably because their owners let them inside at night.

Any cat food left out overnight became fair game for rats and raccoons. Ren didn't like other critters eating his food, so he started scooping sand and leaves on it after he was done. That was making a mess, so I started putting the food in my other neighbor's yard, which is just a slab of concrete. (There's a tall fence separating my yard from Ren's yard, but nothing between me and the concrete yard.) After seeing the night action, I put out only as much chow in the morning as the cats could completely eat during the course of the day.

Just on a whim, I decided the other day to start putting the food back in my yard, laying it out on a stepping stone. I was surprised to come home from work to see the pile still there. I checked it again in the morning and it was all gone. I noticed I hadn't seen my neighbors in a few days and figured they might have gone on vacation, and that would explain Ren's absence. But I don't know where the black cat lives and thought it was strange that the food would remain uneaten all day. I did not believe the rat would eat that much so I set my trail camera out there to see what was going on. Why was the food being left uneaten all day? Where were Ren and the black cat?

When I went out to check the camera after work, I saw that most of the cat food had been eaten. Usually it is all gone, so I knew something unusual was still going on. 

Well, the camera found out. The night life was having a party. Ren might indeed be wherever his owners put him when they go out of town, but the black cat had obviously been gone to get medical care. You'll see in the last frame of the video that he walks right past the chow before coming back and finally spotting it. He usually shows up early in the morning, but he didn't show up this time until just after noon, and he didn't return later for seconds, which is why there was still some food left.

My trail camera has been sitting in a drawer since the water hole on Mt. Tam dried up. I was glad to find a use for it by uncovering a back yard mystery.

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Aug. 21 follow-up (Ren returns):

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