A Cat Chat

There's a friendly black and white cat that lives here at the yacht club. She gets a pat or a head rub  from several passersby each day. Certainly, I never pass by without giving her a scratch. She doesn't have a proper name although Diane in the marina office calls her Daisy.  I see her every morning waiting at the front door of the yacht club for her breakfast which is served promptly at 0800. I caught up with her for a chat the other morning … after breakfast was inhaled … to ask a few questions.

Q: Daisy, where do you hail from? are you a local Cape Town cat? A: Can't you tell by my accent? I'm definitely a South African cat … born and bred here in Cape Town, destined to be just another feral cat, until I got a full-time job here at the yacht club.

Q: How long have you lived at the yacht club? A: I'm not really sure; I just always remember being here. Some of the members say it's been at least 7 or 8 years, maybe longer. Time flies. That's more than 50 years if you're a cat … over half a cat century.

Q: Pardon my directness, but I noticed you have a,  shall I say,  “gnarly” ear. Can you tell me that story? A: There was a huge rat, twice my size, in the marina one time. I stalked him for days, waiting for just the right moment to pounce. Size didn't matter … I'm a vicious cat … he was a rat. I got him, but not without a few battle scars. Yup, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Don't believe that other story floating around about a seagull.

(In actuality, I learned that when the local SPCA neuters cats in South Africa, they notch their ears to identify them. Daisy is a spayed female.)

Q: I notice you hang out by the rum barrel quite often. Do you have a drinking problem? A: Nah, I'm not allowed to drink on duty (though I do a little catnip once in a while). This spot gives me the best vantage point for watching food come out of the club. I used to be able to go inside and folks would buy me a plate of bacon, but the rules have tightened up. Rats! Now I have to sit out here and wait for my opportunity to grab a snack. It's so unworthy of a cat, you know what I mean?

Q: You're the only cat around here … do you ever get lonely? A: Lonely? No … this is a one-cat yacht club and I'm the cat. Lots of people stop to give me a pat or a rub as they pass, which I tolerate quite well, I think. Why would I want competition?

Q: What do you do all day? A: What a stupid question. I do cat stuff. I eat, preen, sleep, preen, poop, preen ... in that order. Once in awhile I act like I'm chasing something. It makes the humans feel safer that I'm here and justified my full-time position.

Q: We had a cat named Jelly and she enjoyed sailing with us. Do you like to sail? A: Blah … blah... blah. I'm really not interested. (Yawn) No bacon? (Yawn) No snacks? Hmm … I'm exhausted … time for a nap.

Feathered Friend Collectives

I've written about collective nouns for animals before. I've even set up a whole page for them on our website. Some are pretty mundane … a herd of cows, a flock of sheep or a pack of wolves. The ones that intrigue me the most, however, are the collective nouns for specific species of birds. Some of them are descriptive and others are off the wall. See what I mean.

A confusion of guinea fowl

A desert of lapwings

A gulp of swallows

A descent of woodpeckers

A wake of buzzards

An opera of canaries

A mob of emus

A weight of albatross

A fling of sandpipers

A wobble of ostriches

By the way, a great source of collective nouns for birds is New Zealand Birds.

Penguins, not Bunnies

Boulders Beach, Simon's Town, South Africa

Easter Monday and it's African penguins, not bunnies, that are the sight to see along the  Simon's Town beaches. We walked to Seaforth Beach and then to Boulders Beach, only a mile or so from the marina, for great views of these cute little critters as they carry on their penguin lives without a care for the onlookers that flock to see and photograph them. By the way, they're also known as jackass penguins because of their bray-like call.

The Boulders Beach penguin colony began back in 1984 when a single pair nested on the beach. In 1985, there were two nesting pairs that bred successfully. By 2002, there were 3,500 penguins and 1,100 breeding pairs. The effects of a oil tanker spill in 2000, that could have devastated the colony, was minimized by the work of hundreds of local volunteers. Boulders Beach falls under the auspices of South Africa's National Parks and as such, the penguins are protected. There's an award-winning, entertaining video entitled City Slickers, that tells the tale of South Africa's newest penguin colony.

A tightly meshed, fenced boardwalk meanders along the hillside where many penguins nest above the shore. We spotted several in the bush making nests and sitting on nests. The fencing keeps the penguins in and the dogs and predators out.

Despite the fences, there were all sorts of signs warning motorists to check under their cars before leaving the parking lot and to watch for penguins on the road. There were also signs warning visitors not to touch penguins … they can bite!

Rather than bore you with more text, take a look at some of our favorite penguin photos ...