The birds and the bees

Back from a couple of days visiting friends and family and our cat sitters were commenting on how many times that they had to rescue bees from the attentions of little Alfie the kitten, who has an obsession with chasing any flying insect at the moment! I don't care when he is chasing (and eating, yeuch) flying ants, daddy-long-legs, etc but I do object when it is bees so I have often had to do the same myself.

Tonight however Jenny (the 8 year old cat) was either just excited that we were home (hence the present) or was just showing off to Alfie, but I immediately spotted her feathery mouthful as she ran across the garden. I headed out (camera in hand as I thought it might make a good blip, whether alive or dead) and was delighted to realise that it was alive and apparently unhurt (well, no obvious wing damage or blood visible at least). So I made her drop it and whisked her away from it to give it a chance to fly away (which it did) but she recaptured it almost immediately. Second time, I locked her in the house and gently picked it up. I know you shouldn't handle it but I reckoned the poor thing was a certain goner if I left it on the ground.

It immediately gripped onto my finger with both feet (I felt like Snow White!) and I was able to carry it up to the huge privet hedge at the back of the garden and placed it as high up as I could in the hope that it was well out of reach of the cats.

I checked back on it a bit later and it was still sitting there gathering it's breath but looked semi-ok so hopefully it survives the night...

Cats 0, Alex 1