I arrived home from work this evening to see the tell tale signs of a problem I detest. There were a number of feathers strewn across my front lawn. After I'd parked the car and dropped my briefcase into the hall, I went for a look round. Sure enough, I found what I'd expected ... a headless, well mutilated body of a pigeon.
Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to witness the activities of a pair of pigeons from their courtship, through their intimate moments, nest building, egg hatching and finally first flights of the fledglings. The pigeons always hang out on pairs and I was acutely aware of this pigeons mate standing forlornly in the middle of our drive looking lost. As I cleared up the remains, the lone pigeon sat quietly on a nearby fence ... still ... watching. What was going through it's mind?
I know what was going through my mind!!! If I knew which of my neighbours had allowed their cat to exercise it's natural instincts in my garden, I would have taken the mutilated corpse back to the neighbour and told them to shove it where the sun doesn't shine!!!
My apologies to any of my followers who are cat owners, but I am seething right now. So much so that when I sat down a few hours later to pickup my sketch pad and pen, there was only one thing on my mind.