Bug Hunt

Today, something I suspected strongly for a while now was brilliantly illustrated to me: our cat is mad.

Willis has been patroling the house more than once a day (when I'm here, who knows how much during the day) staring intently into space - the bathroom windowsill corner, the ceiling above the utility area, the wall by the front door, the kitchen windows. Every time she follows the same sequence. Why?

Bugs.

This is a cat possessed. Her waking hours are consumed by the need to hunt insects. Whatever kind, it doesn't matter to her (although she is somewhat scared of thick-legged spiders). If you go and talk to her whilst she is performing one of her patrols, she will try and climb your legs, and, if on a worktop, will use your shoulders as a convenient boost. I've taken to holding her up to the walls, which seems to send her into hysterical excitement even when there are no bugs. She tries to clamber up the wall like a gecko, legs akimbo, quivering with crazy glee and chattering away.

However, this afternoon an unfortunate bluebottle found its way into our kitchen, and all hell broke loose. She was mewing at me in a cheery way from the worktop, as I'd just returned from watering the "vegetables". Suddenly, she launched herself at the blind, making a noise that sounds a LOT like very quiet quacking. (Yes, as in ducks). Paying no heed to washing up (and therefore planting her foot in a soaking saucepan full of yesterday's risotto), windowsill plants or the water in the sink she jumped up and down like a deranged kangaroo.

I look on bemused, but slightly proud. Ahh, this is a dedicated cat. All those patrols have paid off, she has finally found something. After about a minute, she slumps ungracefully over the drying rack, leaping heavily to the floor whilst making a peculiar deep buzzing. Being slow, my first thought was that she had failed to get the bug, and was retreating in a sulk. Ha! It very quickly dawned on me that she had actually caught it, and was at this very moment running around in tight circles on the bathroom floor with the poor creature in her mouth. Hence the frantic buzzing.

I was more than a little impressed that she had not only hit it but manoevered it into her gob, and told her so (she can't even seem to get food into it!). After a bit of this running, she opened her mouth and slowly dropped the traumatised bluebottle onto the floor (yum). It laid upsidedown, quivering and feebly buzzing. At this point I asked her to kill it a bit more quickly and stop being mean.

She ignores me, proceeding to tap it over and over again, waiting for it to buzz, then tapping it. She looks up at me, and I bend down to see how close it is to death or if its just faking. Willis is ridiculously excited by this, which she seems to think is me joining in her game, and starts purring so frantically that the purr on the out-breath is bizarrely high-pitched and sounds like a squeak. My involvement seems to fire her up, but instead of squashing it like I expect, she sweeps down and starts eating it whilst I look on in disgust.

Finished, she comes over and climbs on my thighs, evidently extremely pleased. The manic purring continues. For my part, I'm not sure whether to be amused or disturbed. She's a little monster, I think, stroking her.

An hour later I come downstairs and she is still sitting on the sink, staring at where she found the fly. That's dedication to duty.