And yet more Visiting Cats were arriving.

It seemed that news of The Cat’s fondness for gentlemen of the orange variety had spread, and by the spring of the following year we were giving them letters and numbers instead of names. They were mostly staunchly feral and deeply suspicious of humans.

G4 was an up-and-coming male originally called Durante (for Jimmy Durante) due to his habit of meticulously sniffing everything.

He followed the alpha-males around in a non-aggressive manner, shadowing their every move, but wisely not courting confrontation. They did not seem to perceive him as a threat, so he was probably one of their offspring.

G5 was a more mature gentleman with a darker coat. He was very camera-shy and a solitary character, appearing mostly at dusk, hence a dearth of photos of him.

G7 (also shown in the header photo), on the other hand, was a mature and confident cat. Unlike the others, he seemed to come from a garden on the other side of the fields where there were other cats, and probably another cat feeder.

The Cat was enjoying having so many orange companions, and they were enjoying eating her food.