Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride

We’ve put our cat, Misty, through the wringer a bit. Poor chap. It makes me feel guilty just to think of it.

He was born in France, but we took him to Germany. From there, we moved him to England, with a few return journeys between the two countries during the process, each of which he loathed. And now we’ve moved him to Spain.

What’s worse, we twice abandoned him. He spent several months with friends before we could bring him to England; later, we did the same in Engalnd, until we were ready for him to join us in Spain. He did well on both occasions – we only left him with good friends – but it was still traumatising to be deserted in that way.

It changed his character. We first met him at dinner with friends. We’d promised each other we wouldn’t come away with a kitten, but the one who would soon become Misty charmed us by his overwhelming affection. It even drove him to climb all over us. That was painful, as you can imagine, since he used his claws to climb our legs, but it was seductive all the same. We took him home that evening.

After our first abandonment of him, however, the easy affection turned into something far warier. He’s become more sensitive to slights. He’s inclined to show his displeasure with tooth and claw.

Who can blame him? He was the victim of treatment bordering on abuse, for which I can only hang my head in shame.

On the positive side, our second separation was followed by a last move, just as soon as we’d moved from a flat to a house with a garden he could feel at ease in, and it has been a success. Like us, he’s finding Spain a wonderful place for a retirement. He fitted straight in, finding his favourite places, on a bench in the front garden, on a bed indoors, on the lawn at the back, on a sun-drenched balcony, within a few hours of moving in.

Misty’s decided Spain’s just the place for a senior cat

But nothing’s ever an unmixed blessing. He’s just had an unpleasant experience, a reprise of an equally traumatic moment ten years ago. I made a record of the incident at the time, but let me give you a quick summary here too.

We were surprised one day to see Misty, on the roof of a garage, engaged in some kind of strange game, or sinister dance, with two crows. They were taunting him. One would land in front of him and tempt him to attack and, when he did, fly off. The other then landed behind him, making him turn and start the process again.

Why were they doing this, we wondered?

We discovered a few days later, when we were woken one morning by a storm of cawing from the street outside our bedroom. A crow fledgeling had fallen from the nest. Too young to fly back, he was stuck on the ground and easy game for a cat in his prime. When we looked, Misty had the fledgeling in his jaws, ready to turn him into breakfast. 

It wasn’t proving easy, though. It wasn’t the young crow that was cawing but the parents. They were both attacking the cat, with beak and talons, and giving him a terrible time. So terrible, in fact, that in the end he dropped the fledgeling and fled back to the house. 

He never troubled the crows again, even though the young one spent several more days on the ground before developing the strength to fly out of danger.

Well, the same thing has happened again here, ten years on. Not with crows, though. This time it was a far smaller and apparently less menacing bird. These are the ones who have made their nest above our front door. I had thought they were house martins, but it turns out they are in fact common swallows. But there’s nothing common about these fine birds, so small and yet so valiant.

One of the things this couple did was extend the nest they took over, and we soon discovered why. Like a young suburban couple, they were getting ready for a large family. As far as we can tell, there are five fledglings in the nest. They certainly needed some extra space.

Busy, busy swallows. And watchful too.
Note the nest extension, at the top, for their large family

Of the five, one is now big enough to try flying around a bit. That makes him vulnerable. He could fall to ground, leaving him easy prey even for a cat like Misty, rather slower in his retirement than he was when young.

Now the space by the front door is where he likes to spend a few moments before wandering to his bench. So the other day he was resting quietly on the doorstep. Presumably taking his time as he contemplated a few hours’ leisure in the sun. 

The swallows were having none of it. They went straight onto the attack.

Poor chap. It must have felt like déjà vu. Under vicious airborne attack by two aggressors. Even though, this time, he’d done nothing to merit such treatment. Why, these days, ten years on from his prime, his eyesight’s not so good, and he’s a bit rheumatic in his movements. The hunting instincts may still be there, but the performance is lacking.

The parents, however, weren’t prepared to make any allowance for his pensioner status. He was too damn close. He had to go.

The persecution got through to him fast. Now he doesn’t hang around when he leaves the house by the front door. He heads straight to his favoured resting place without pausing anywhere near the swallows. 

There’s no peace for the wicked, they say. Even when, as on this occasion, he hadn’t even been given the chance to be wicked. A humbling experience, having to swallow his pride, when he hadn’t even tried to have a swallow.