It's not unusual to find little "gifts" on our doormat in the morning or late afternoon, left by our wildest cat MouseyTongue. In fact, it was the regular presence of these sometimes whole, but usually parts, of various rodents, amphibians, and reptiles that caused us to change his name from Mao Tse-tung to his current moniker. When parts show up regularly, you remember to look before you step. When the pace slows - and you forget - you get to play the game of "what was that I stepped on/in?" Then I get to examine the little multi-colored lumps of guts and gristle and use my Comparative Biology 101 skill set to try to identify the organism that they came from before I take the whole mat to the dock and dump the parts. Always me, because Thais won't go near it - and this is one of the truly masculine jobs at the farm with no contest. Usually it is mouse or frog parts. Sometimes only a hide. On occasion, a detached head sitting upright, eyes unblinking like something out of a Godfather movie.
Mousey is the cat we used to fish for on a regular basis. He likes his fish whole and flipping. Mercifully, he usually eats the small bream (his favorite) from the head down. If you go anywhere near the pond when he is in sight, he bolts for the dock, singing his desire for sushi. We haven't been fishing in a while... Now, how he managed to get this one-pound bass out of the pond and to the doorstep I can only guess. And my guess is that either the fish launched himself out of the pond while chasing prey or, more likely, a blue heron speared it but the fish was too large to manage and the cat took over. I would like to believe that the cat pulled it out by himself - and the mental picture is hilarious - but I don't think he could manage that. Anyway, Mousey was very smug this morning as I stepped out, and wasn't at all interested in his dry food.