As I was walking back down the driveway with today's mail, I noticed one of the neighborhood cats, a large fluffy brindle, sitting in the yard, plumped down between the birch and the wild grapes, so I headed over to talk to it. As the cat backed up and moved away toward the neighbor's yard, I spooked a a tiny chipmunk that the cat may or may not have been stalking.
Maybe not, because the little creature ran pretty much right up to the cat before freezing again, and the cat just looked for a second, sniffed and continued heading away. Maybe, because what use to pounce when someone further up the food chain will just take your prey away?
I walked very slowly ove rto the chipmunk, which was picking its way slowly toward the patch of woods that separate us from the neighbors to the front. Cutest thing you ever saw, with stripes on the back and side, ears folding forward and back as it looked at me, spine of the tail clearly visible through the fur. We communed for a while, maybe five feet away, and then as I bent down for a closer look it clambered over the moss and pine needles to the nearest big tree. And chittered loudly from a safe perch.
Update: Same cat, different chipmunk. This time the cat was between the pond and the pine, and when it got up to leave, so did a little furry friend, bounding away from us both and into the trees. My guess now is that the cat likes to bat its catches around on the lawn for a while, and I was inerfering with its play.
Posted by wallich at September 9, 2003 03:27 PMAny pictures of the cat and chipmunks?
Posted by: Tim at September 10, 2003 09:28 AM