Cat bonus: more of the twins

In my latest #Caturday post, I wrote about how I can’t tell Pommie and Spud apart. (Or Pomegranate and Potato, if using their full names.) I thought I’d do a bonus post with several more photos of those two.

In the following pictures, Pommie is on the left, and Spud on the right, as identified by seeing their genders when they arrived. Although there seem to be some minor differences, I can’t spot anything about either of them to reliably tell them apart. Can you?

Cat update: twins

For those in the US, I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. Among other things, I am thankful that Poppy chose our property to raise her kittens, and thankful that they continue to enjoy the shelter & feeder I spent many hours building for them.

One thing I’m a little embarrassed to admit is although I can recognize Poppy, Porcini, and Portabella, based on face and paw markings, I still can’t tell Spud and Pommie apart, unless I see their nether regions (since Spud is male, and Pommie is female). Their fur markings seem pretty much identical to me.

Here’s a picture with Spud, Portabella, and Pommie. I know that Spud is on the left only because I saw him jump down from the top of the camera, so I could see it was a male cat; otherwise I’d have no way of telling the left and right cats apart.

Here’s another shot, showing Spud coming out of the feeder:

Compare with this one, of Pommie coming out of the feeder:

They do look a little different, but I think that’s mostly differences in pose; watching video of both, I can’t identify any noticeable difference in markings.

Oh well, I’ll keep looking, and may spot something eventually. Most of the time it’s easy enough to tell who is who, based on behavior. Spud is more active and playful, as is common with boy cats. He also often snuggles (and play-fights) with Porcini:

Stereo yawns (Poppy and Porcini — Poppy has only a little white on one paw, and Porcini has a white stripe on her nose):

Snuggling inside, when alerted by some noise:

Stretch! (See the white stripe? Yep, Porcini.)

Porcini (again) looking at the camera in the feeder:

Porcini on the awning, Poppy on the deck, enjoying some sun:

Spud or Pommie; who can tell?

A non-cam photo of the shelter side, showing the “Cat House Saloon” sign:

And the “Mercantile” feeder side:

A cute cactus ornament inside the feeder window:

Porcini watches someone (probably Spud) on top of the camera housing:

Two mushroom girls looking at each other at breakfast time; probably negotiating who is next in the queue:

Pommie and Spud again; spot any differences? I know that Spud is on the right.

A cat watches through the window as a disappointed raccoon visits:

Watching from the doorway as a deer walks by:

Porcini and Spud snuggling:

Double-decker cats as another walks by:

That’ll do for this week!

Cat update: nothing too dramatic

Nothing too dramatic happened at the cat house this past week… but here’s a very “dramatic chipmonk” look:

This look from a few seconds later is amusing, too:

We did have a few un-dramatic visits by disappointed raccoons (notice the cat peeking from inside; didn’t even run away):

And a slightly more dramatic visit by a disappointed possum (with a cat in the doorway, who did retreat, and another inside, who didn’t):

Look closely at this picture; sure, there’s a cat on the awning, but do you notice the paw sticking up from under the deck?

Jumping down from the top of the facade:

All five cats snuggling inside again; makes me happy to see that:

A bit later, some cute licks:

All five for breakfast a couple of days later:

Did you watch the video of this on YouTube?

Enjoying some sun on the deck:

Spud and Porcini doing their play-fighting thing, while Poppy sleeps below:

Spud (front) and Portabella (back) nuzzling with their mother, Poppy (left):

I can’t decide if that or this shot from a couple of minutes later is more cute:

Preparing to jump up on top of the camera housing:

Levitating cat!

Another levitating cat; jumping up to the facade, the reverse of the shot earlier:

(Rather thick fog, too.)

That’s it for this week.

Video

Taunty Spider at Cats Breakfast

All five of the feral cats turn up for breakfast, and some of them notice a spider on the wall.

Cat update: the door experiment and food error

This past week the cat house had an experiment with their front door, and a feeder malfunction, among other things.

But first, a historic event: all five cats inside the shelter at the same time. I haven’t seen this before; the most I’ve seen is four at once:

Here they are all outside:

The next day, one of the cats (probably Spud, that scamp) was playing with one of the thermal mats in the shelter. These have foil or something inside to reflect the body heat of the cat, helping them keep warm (in addition to the heating pads on the bottom level). So they make a fun crinkle noise when moved:

He pulled it down to the bottom level:

So I decided to screw them down, so that wouldn’t occur again. Just one screw and washer for each so far, though I may add another later.

While I was there, I also started an experiment to see if the cats could figure out the front door. When I built the shelter, I installed cat flaps on the front and back. The front one is their main door, and the back is an emergency exit, so they can’t be trapped by wildlife. But to encourage them to go inside, I have a bungee holding the door open (visible in this construction post). Now that they’re using the shelter every day, I thought I’d try removing it, so the door is closed. That’d keep it warmer inside.

But they couldn’t figure it out:

The door had a couple of magnets holding it closed, to stop it flapping in the wind, which also made it harder for them to open. So I removed the bottom magnet, to make it easier; the weather stripping around the edges still holds it closed well enough. I even propped it open with a stick:

While that worked to get Porcini to go inside, as soon as the stick was knocked away, the door of course swung shut, and she acted trapped. After a minute, she figured out the door, and exited:

But then she and the others went back to acting like they couldn’t get in. Even pathetically peering in the windows:

I felt bad, and relented. The next day, I put the bungee back on the door. Maybe I’ll try again another time, or maybe I’ll just accept that they don’t want a closed door. Even in their small old shelter, they pulled the back door flap off, and almost always went in that way, rather than the front door.

If they were pet cats, I could train them to use the door by shoving them through a few times. But that isn’t feasible with ferals. They had a strong drive to get inside, but couldn’t figure it out.

But they’ve forgiven my experiment, and are happy to be back inside:

And snuggly:

Another interesting thing this week was a malfunction of the automatic feeder. When rearranging things in the feeder cupboard, I had accidentally unplugged the feeder. It has a battery backup, so kept working, but after a few days the battery got too low during a breakfast feeding… and had a strange failure: instead of just stopping, it continuously dumped portion after portion of food, ending with a huge pile:

Fortunately I saw this happening on the camera, so went out there to fix it. I plugged it back in, and scooped up a bunch of the excess food.

A few hours later, I captured some video of the cats playing on the deck and awnings:

Did you watch my Cats Playing in the Sun video on YouTube? Check it out!

Apparently I didn’t scoop away enough excess food, as there was still quite a bit left that evening… but fortunately no raccoons or possums visited, so the cats got to enjoy midnight snacks:

Yesterday, Porcini and Spud had a difference of opinion (Porcini wanted to sleep, Spud wanted to play), resulting in a bit of fighting inside:

But as usual, things ended peacefully enough, after Porcini put Spud in his place.

Another screenshot from my iPad, showing cats in all four cameras. This time, the shop cat is Pepper, the fluffy black cat that sleeps in the front of the shop, and just comes to the back to eat:

Lastly, some cute snuggling from this morning:

Tune in next week, same cat-time, same cat-channel. 😸

Video

Cats Playing in the Sun

A silent video of one cat playing with the decorative wagon wheel on the deck, then a couple on top of the awnings and another on the deck, enjoying a bit of warmth from the sun.

Cat update: stretches, snacks, strangers, sunbeams, snuggles

Happy #Caturday!

I have three cameras constantly watching our outdoor feral cats (plus one for the shop ferals), and I review the recorded footage each morning to see if there were any issues, and let’s face it, to capture pictures and video of them being cute. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. I often end up with hundreds of pics each week. This past week, I count 96 photos and videos.

But fear not, I wouldn’t subject you to that much cuteness. You’ll just have to make do with the following 22 hand-picked selections.

First up, enjoying the deck of the cat house:

Enjoying a good stretch inside:

Last Sunday the food dispenser ran out during breakfast. Porcini came up onto the deck to let me know (though I already knew, since I had been manually dispensing food via the WiFi-connected food dispenser):

She watched me refilling it from a safe distance (might be hard to see; look above the rock in the center of the picture):

Hail:

A bit of play-fighting:

Portabella brought a snack home; a mouse or vole:

Which wasn’t dead, so gave a couple of them some fun chasing it around the house:

Some disappointed visitors; the alien gray cat:

And a raccoon:

Breakfast rush:

Did you see the YouTube video that included that, and all five cats at breakfast? I’m not a professional video editor, and usually don’t bother adding a music track, but I did do some basic editing, transitions, and titles. I just use Apple’s iMovie app, which is very basic in what it can do, but good enough for me.

Back to the pics. A sunbeam through the window:

Sun on the deck:

Big yawn:

And stretch:

Three cat snuggle:

A screenshot from my iPad, showing cat(s) in each of the views. The upper-left camera shows the inside of the workshop, where two other feral cats live; this is Pansy:

More snuggles:

Another screenshot, this time showing all five cats; four in the shelter, one eating:

Breakfast queue of four cats, keeping out of the rain:

Pretzel stretch:

Yet more cute snuggles:

That’s it for this week!

Video

Video: All Five Cats at Breakfast

All five of our feral cats turned up for breakfast at the same time a couple of days ago (which is unusual). Plus a bonus breakfast rush from this morning.

Cat update: baby possum, raccoon, fall leaves, and videos

Cat update time! Actually, two weeks worth; I wrote a blog post last week, but apparently forgot to publish it! So I’ll start with that, and add on photos from this past week.

A young possum visited ~~last week~~ the previous week: