We see Night Jars...

Last night when we went to go to bed neither Boris nor Charlie were in and Miss Minnie had gone AWOL.  It isn't unusual for Boris to be on walkabout and with Persephone and family here on holiday Charlie likes to go visit to see what tasty morsel will come his way but Miss Minnie rarely ventures further than the wall outside Gregoris's or the edge of the field next door right by the corner of our wall.

I could not settle as there is so much activity on the estate at the moment I worry for Miss Minnie who is such a nervous scaredy cat at the best of times and, the last time she was missing for any length of time, she had obviously been shut in somewhere.  The 8s were here earlier - I waited for them to turn their truck round when Nicky and I came back from giving blood.  We worried she might have been shut in so I decided to go and listen outside.

As I was walking down our path a movement overhead caught my eye.  In the dark a bird had flown silently overhead and was sitting on the electric cables.  I thought it would be a Scops owl but when I looked up I could see that the shape was nothing like that of an owl.  I walked across the road to listen for Miss Minnie's familiar wail but heard nothing and as I walked back a second bird came to join the first.  These birds had a shape similar to the cuckoos we get here but the call was nothing like the call of the cuckoos and the shape was quite distinctive as was the colouring.  John came to join me and we tried to pick the birds out in the light from our torch.  These were a mystery, so silent when flying from one cable to another.

We could not find Miss Minnie, Boris or Charlie and I was prepared to sit up for a long wait until she suddenly appeared from nowhere completely unconcerned that she had worried us - little shit.



We have investigated the mystery birds and through the wonders of tintyweb we managed to find the call we had heard and from that identified that these had been Nightjars.  So had Miss Minnie not been missing we might never have had this extraordinary sighting - now I know what I was looking at I would recognise them immediately.  Not sure if it was a mating pair but would like to think so.  It was too dark for me to photograph so I found these pictures so you can see what they look like.

This morning Miss Minnie was totally at ease with life - resting on my leg.  She is a funny little thing - clearly something at some point here upset her greatly and her character changed completely.  She went from a cute and loving cat to one which flinched when you went to stroke her and ran around on her knees terrified.  She can still be like that during the day but  last thing at night and first thing in the morning she loves to come and snuggle down with us - she makes a right song and dance about it until she gets comfy.

When she is comfy I know she feels safe because she bares her belly to us and this is the most vulnerable spot for cats, apparently they only do this with people they completely trust and she actually loves to have her belly rubbed - she clearly doesn't find this stressful or threatening and you can tell that it is cooler because she has stopped sleeping in the shower.

It is actually much much cooler today.  The weather is coming from Lara - this generally means unsettled and possibly rain and the forecast backs this up - cooler until Tuesday.  We don't mind - we have found the high temperatures difficult to cope with and sleep in.

Boris took his life into his hands to join Minnie on the bed.

He had been sensible enough to leave a gap between them but in his slumbers rolled over so he was actually touching her.

We stood back expecting fireworks as she opened her eyes and gave us her best 'pissed-off' look or at least that is what we thought she was doing and then blow me she too rolled over so that they were touching belly to belly.  Boris looks massive!!!!

So that sums up our day which has been a quiet one and we are quite happy about that.  Tomorrow we will be busy entertaining for Sunday lunch.  Finally some great news it looks like our lovely friends and neighbours will be making it over after all!!!