Murder

I know that my cat kills birds. He is not at all choosy either - he has not respect - of the birds we know that he has had, the list is interesting
1. Thrush (at least 2)
2. Robin
3. Blackbird (at least 2)
4. Greater Spotted Woodpecker (I was MOST upset about this one!)

He also kills squirrels - grey ones - so thats OK.

I know it is an inherent part of his nature - he is a cat after all.

As some of you might be aware, Corin installed a cat flap a couple of weeks ago. It didn't occur to me at the time that this might cause the degree of mayhem, horror and disgust (and subsequent photo opportunity) that it has this afternoon.

Imagine the scene - James playing on the XBox, Corin and I sat on the sofa's reading quietly...the cat flap clunks and in walks Sparky - and for a split second no-one batted an eyelid....

until the horrendous and surprisingly loud sound of an animal SCREAMING (not exagerating - it was awful) - we all immediately assumed sparky was hurt, until we looked properly and found Sparky say over a bird, on its back, and the bird was trying to peck at Sparky and defend himself, whilst Sparky kept having a got back at it.

James RAN out of the room and was really quite shaken I think - more by the noise, but also because he hasn't ever seen Sparky get a bird - he's just found out about it afterwards and has been able to 'excuse' the behaviour in his own mind because 'its what cats do' - but to see it happen live, in your front room, is a different story.

Corin put the bird outside, but it was too badly injured to get away - so he did the only humane thing and finished what our cat started. All the whilst Sparky sat by and waited for his dinner.

He didn't eat it, he played with it (I think he has subsequently taken it away and stashed it somewhere) - shortly after I took this photo (with my very long lens, from a good distance) he left it on the grass, at which point, Chippy (the other cat) came along and promptly took it back into the house to play football with it.

Corin has just finished hoovering up the feathers and mopping the floor.

Gross!