Following on from the previous post all about The Cat and her sons, here are some more mothers with their sons.

First is Sprocket (The Cat’s daughter) with her son Little Bang. The Cat and Sprocket had joined forces and brought their kittens up in a joint colony; The Cat’s two sons were adopted, and Sprocket’s boys, Little Bang and Early Lately, stayed in the garden. This was Sprocket’s first and only litter and her kittens were noticeably smaller than The Cat’s, in fact they were all smaller than the runt of The Cat’s litter and it took time for Little Bang to mature and fill out. But even when he was young and small, the desire to protect his mother was apparent.

Stardust was Kiwi’s only son. He grew into a fine adult with a gentle disposition and later joined the Garden Family where his talent for cuddling was legendary. As you can see, Kiwi was a proud mother. Colour-wise, Kiwi was black with two small white patches, and this pattern was repeated in Stardust, except with grey fur instead of black.

Visitor’s son Tiger, who had been brought into the garden by his mother (see header photo), stayed with the Garden Family once his mother moved out of the garden. Tiger and Visitor remained close and met up occasionally; the photo shows them having tea together in the front path, where Visitor regularly came to eat. She is obviously wondering firstly how her son got to be so big, and secondly, why she hadn’t insisted on eating first.

Twilight brought her kittens up in the fields. She was an excellent mother and had no problem in bringing five kittens across all the fields to the drive to eat, keeping them together until they reached their destination. Even when the kittens had grown up, they remained close and loyal to their mother, and often accompanied her in a protective role when she came to eat, as her son Syllabub is doing in this picture. Not long afterwards, Syllabub attached himself to Phantom and her family, and his protective role moved away from his mother to his first adult mate.

Like Twilight, Phantom chose to live out in the fields (and not close by – she lived on the far side of the fields on the other side of the road, which was quite a distance for such a small cat). Her son, Tuxedo Joe, took his role of his mother Phantom’s protector very seriously. He would station himself close to her while she took her after-dinner nap in the front path, determined to keep her safe. What every feral mother needs is a fierce guard-kitten to protect them, after all.

We saw that most of the offspring of feral mothers remained loyal and respectful to the matriarch of their respective families, even once they had grown into fully-fledged adults.