The Huntress is Still on the Prowl

I’d wondered whether Sarah was still a hunter since we moved to Indianapolis. Deprived of the large park area to roam in, she’s chunked up a bit. And while I kept her inside for a couple of months after we moved, I knew it was inevitable she’d get out sooner or later, and that for my sanity and hers, I was going to have to let her out. So I installed a cat door--the sort that actually installs in a window--and waited for the inevitable joy of her bringing in prey. Dead, if I was lucky.

It’s not that I wanted her to hunt. I just understood that there’s a primal huntress alive and well in this particular cat, as there had been in her sister, Tondra, in her heyday. At 17, though, Tondra had long since conceded the hunting tasks to Sarah.

It was autumn, still prime hunting time, but nothing. Winter, nothing, but I thought perhaps that was due to lack of available prey: birds gone south, mice hunkered down warm in some inaccessible hole.

Spring. I wondered if perhaps the cat door being at window height meant that she might be catching something, but could not manage to get it into the house. That would be lovely, from my standpoint. I pretty much stopped thinking about it. Until Tuesday.

I was putting up a curtain rod over the great room window that faces into the back yard. Because I was doing so, I just happened to see a cheerful Sarah bouncing through the back yard with a mouthful of bird.

Before I could even consider doing something about it, I watched her bound to the bedroom window and prove that she had no trouble going through the cat door with a mouthful of prey, at least bird-sized prey.

I had no idea whether this bird was live or dead; it wasn’t moving, but I have enough experience to know that’s not especially relevant. And if you’ve read earlier entries in my blog, you know that I’m terrified of live birds in the house. I had to catch that cat before she opened her mouth.

I ran into the bedroom, where she’d just jumped down from the window. I swooped down on her, picked her up, and ran to the kitchen, where I opened the screen door and shoved her into the back yard, closing the screen behind her.

I noted her offended look as I then sprinted back to the bedroom to lock the cat door. That done, I could take my time returning to see how things were progressing. In the kitchen, Tondra was showing interest in going out and watching the proceedings, so I let her out. I then returned to my curtain rod and front seat view of the back yard.

Sure enough, after looking around for a good place to be and not finding one that appealed to her, Sarah bounded back to the cat door and attempted to bring the bird in yet again. She was not happy when she discovered that she couldn’t come in, but my problem was solved, and I turned my attention to the hardware---until I heard squawking. I peeked out the window to discover the bird flying away while Sarah tried to catch her in midair.

OK: I guess we’ve established she still hunts. And that the bird was live and quite healthy.
Which seems to make it inevitable that one of these days I’ll come home from work to find an avian critter staring at me, inside my house.