Our Feline Forecaster!

Hillary Mayıs 09, 2022

For #AnimalTales this week I give you an old post from September 2013 (I am still rather playing catch up from my week away as well as being heavily involved in setting up a new Facebook Group - Book Your Holiday Direct from the Owner. Do pop over and have a look!)

But I digress - on with the tale ...

We have 4 cats - Henry who came with us from England and Firkin, Fumée and Foggy who joined us when we moved to France. We got extra cats, not because we thought Henry needed company, far from it in fact, as he is not a sociable cat, but because we needed some more mousers. All 4 are now working hard at keeping our mouse population down.

Fumée and Foggy - 2010

However, we have noticed over the last year or so that Foggy has another talent over and above mouse murder ... he is a feline weather forecaster!

During the summer months all four cats become much thinner - they still catch mice but don't always bother to eat them. They don't need the natural insulation from body fat to keep warm as they do in winter (they are all outdoor cats except for Henry who is allowed in). However as summer turns to autumn we notice that they begin to fill out, obviously eating more of the mice they catch and adding much needed fat to keep them warm. Last winter (2013/2014) this was really obvious and as early as October all 4 had grown very round and Simon said we would be in for a hard winter. I was a bit sceptical and just thought they had found a particularly large mouse family nearby. Simon was of course right and we had a very long and very cold winter.

Spring was also unusually cold this year (2014) and all 4 cats kept their insulation until June when the weather finally warmed up. Since then a slimline Foggy resorted to his unique habit of disappearing for days and even weeks on end. We used to worry, but now now. We just wait for him to come home and promptly bring in the washing ... because you can guarantee that when Foggy comes back for more than a flying visit we are in for some wet or cold weather.

This summer was however particularly dry so we haven't seen much of Foggy. He did however come home in mid July, marched into the house, settled down on the sofa as if he was not the outdoor cat he is supposed to be and was not going anywhere. An hour or so later clouds loomed, the day darkened and we had the most magnificent thunderstorm with torrential rain. Foggy had known this was coming!

Now as summer once again fades to autumn we are seeing more of our feline forecaster ... and the weather is a bit wetter! As yet though, neither he nor the other cats have appeared to put on much weight so we are hopeful that temperatures will not be tumbling towards our first frost just yet. That said, as with all weather forecasters (I won't mention a particular Mr Fish and the hurricane - oops, I just did!), Foggy does sometimes get the forecast wrong: