Cat on a [warmish] tin roof

The day was hardly warm, but one of the cats next door knew where to get the last of the afternoon sun.

I love the way a cat can bring a scene to life.

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

Usurper

In Christchurch recently I slept the last couple of nights on a mattress on the floor. After I rose in the morning, the cat usurped the bed.

WordWeb defines 'usurp' thus: 'Take control of (without authority and possibly with force); take as one's right or possession'.

No force was involved in this case, but everything else fits perfectly.

All content © 2014 Pete McGregor

Jimmy's last weekend

Some time over the weekend, Jimmy died. I only found out this evening. He was 18 — not bad for a cat. I'd known he wouldn't make it through the winter — I'd seen how fast he was growing thin — but the news still took me by surprise. This might have been his last evening; when I photographed this the thought never crossed my mind that he might have been living through the last hours of his life.

I looked for a photograph of him to post here, but that was a bad idea. This is better.

Jimmy and Ming were both here when I arrived, and now both have gone. Now the farm is without cats. Now I'm without cats. He wasn't mine, although I was probably his. We got on pretty well.

I miss him.


All content © 2014 Pete McGregor

Leopard, Naini Tal

Leopards still roam wild throughout many parts of India, including the Himalayan foothills of Garhwal and Kumaon which together make up Uttarakhand. While I travelled in that region in late 2006 I wondered whether I might glimpse a leopard; later, on returning to the lowlands of Rajasthan and reading a newspaper  that reported the killing of a young girl by a leopard in Uttarakhand (known then as Uttaranchal), I thought maybe glimpsing a leopard isn't as exhilarating an experience for people who live in close proximity to wild leopards.

This one, however, was captive at Naini Tal zoo, where it shared a small enclosure with too many others.


[7 December 2006, Canon 20D, 300 mm f4 L IS, ISO 200, 1/160s at f8]

All content © 2012 Pete McGregor

Kitten

Curiosity seems to be a defining characteristic of kittens. George has plenty.


[10 July 2010; Canon 20D, 24–105 mm f4 L at 105 mm, ISO 200, 1/25 at f5.0]


All content © 2010 Pete McGregor

New friend

We got together with friends at Eastbourne over the weekend. George had arrived in April and seemed to have taken over rather well.
 
[10 July 2010; Canon 20D, 24–105 mm f4 L at 24 mm, ISO 400, 1/8 at f5.6]

All content © 2010 Pete McGregor

Office equipment

All offices should have one of these.

I looked after a house for friends in April last year. The office was a delight — so was the management.

[1 April 2009; Canon 20D, 24–105 mm f4 L at 24 mm, ISO 400, 1/80 at f5.6]

All content © 2010 Pete McGregor

Merry (and relaxing) Christmas

Wishing you all a most relaxing Christmas and New Year


All content © 2009 Pete McGregor

Snow leopard, Naini Tal

She wanted to play cat-and-mouse, or snow leopard-and-goral, with me, but the wire got in the way. Eventually she lay down and watched me. I didn't want to leave, but the zoo was about to close.

All content © 2009 Pete McGregor

Don't mess with Ming the Merciless

When Sartre used the term "The Look", he probably didn't have this in mind.
All content © 2009 Pete McGregor

Cats own my home [Ming]

Leave a door open and this is what happens.
All content © 2009 Pete McGregor

Let sleeping cats lie

December 2006. At Naini Tal zoo, Uttaranchal, the foothills of the Himalaya.
All content © 2009 Pete McGregor

Snow leopard [Nainital zoo]

Sorry about the absence for the last 4–5 days; a new wireless router wrecked my modem and I've been waiting for a replacement. Everything seems to be running fine now (touch wood).

When I jotted down a few thoughts about snow leopards in June 2006 I had no idea I'd see one (albeit captive) in India later in the year. This female snow leopard occupied pride of place at the Nainital zoo in Uttaranchal (now officially Uttarakhand). While the idea of caged snow leopards must be an affront of the highest order to anyone with any sensitivity to the nature of these cats, at least some attempt had been made to provide her with a large, moderately complex enclosure. However, she apparently only enjoys it on alternate days, as she and the male snow leopard take turns in the cage; half their time they're locked up out of view behind the enclosure.

But despite her confinement, her instincts hadn't been crushed. I visited late in the day; everyone else had gone, and I saw her crouched, drinking, then looking about. She saw me moments after this photo. Perhaps she heard the click of the shutter. She turned to face me, then crouched. I knew what was coming — years of playing with cats leave one with no doubt.

She made a little run at me — I have a blurry photo of her in full, direct charge — then she scampered off into her artificial cave. I squeezed behind a nearby tree, waited a minute or so, then peered out. She was doing the same, peering out of her cave at me. We played hide and seek for a little while before she finally lay down and just watched me. I was almost in tears.

All content © 2009 Pete McGregor

Cat at the Jodhpur fort

After rooms full of knives and ramparts arrayed with cannon, small lives like these in the shadows of human history, surviving in the face of the threat of the human future, filled me with hope.

All content © 2008 Pete McGregor

Camo cat on carpet

They assume (correctly) one will notice them and avoid stepping on them, even when they're asleep and almost invisible on the most-used area of kitchen floor. [Jimmy a.k.a. Tigger; 23 November 2008]

All content © 2008 Pete McGregor

Leopard

The staff at Naini Tal Zoo had clearly attempted to provide at least some animals with reasonable living conditions (the tiger; the snow leopards, for example). But seven leopards in a cage roughly the area of a tennis court...

In December 2006, shortly after I left the Garhwal region of the Indian Himalaya, three young girls were killed and eaten by leopards (probably the same animal) within a week or so. I'd believed man-eating leopards could now be found only in the pages of books like those of Jim Corbett. I was wrong.

All content © 2008 Pete McGregor

Ming and Jimmy on the kill

Jimmy (a.k.a. Tigger) leaves Ming with the remains of a freshly killed plate of cat biscuits. Both finely tuned hunters, they can detect the sound of a fridge door from over a hundred metres away and materialise beyond apparently closed doors.

All content © 2008 Pete McGregor