Tuesday, July 3, 2007

The Quiet Hunter

Cats are not really nocturnal; they are naturally crepuscular, which is active during dawn and twilight. I was gently reminded of that this morning.

It was warm (for Seattle) last night, and so Katherine left various office windows open. This was an excellent idea. However, in July this far north, early daylight and the various bird calls that accompany it are in full swing by 4:30 AM. They woke me up, and I was cold to boot, so I decided to close some windows.

Katherine's office overlooks a small (~ acre?) protected wetlands, where most of the nature sound effects originate. I padded to Katherine's office, and stopped at the sight of Whitey, sitting quietly on the window sill. He wasn't up there for company, or warm sun. Nor was he meowing because his prey was on the far side of a screen. Instead, he just quietly surveyed the world as it was.

I switched to my own empty office, and closed my window. I then returned to Katherine's office, but decided not to disturb the hunter on his perch. Instead, I started to close the office door most of the way, and he jumped down ... I felt a little sorry I had interrupted him after all, he had been where he belonged.

1 comment:

  1. Bootsies likes to run back and forth between the two glass sliding doors overlooking our backyard. She probably does it at dawn, because we hear an awful lot of activity down here long before feeding time.

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