The male feral cats (alpha-males included) displayed different attitudes towards kittens. If the kittens’ mother was a regular companion of a particular male, he would sometimes adopt a ‘guardian’ role, spraying round the nest to let other males know that this was his family (even though there likelihood was that the kittens had a variety of fathers). Some males seemed to be able to single particular kittens out as their own, for instance BBC with Raven and NVQ with Bala. And then there were a handful of males who were close to kittens who were not their own. This seemed very out-of-character for alpha-males like NVQ and Thundercat, but happen it did.

The first instance of this was when The Cat allowed Visitor Cat to move into the garden with her kitten, Tiger. Bearing in mind The Cat’s previous antagonism towards Visitor, it was not a surprise that Visitor was initially nervous and on edge. But then up-and-coming alpha-male Longtail moved in as Visitor and Tiger’s guardian and, after a few days, Visitor relaxed and life settled down.

Longtail returned to his duties in the fields, and Kiwi’s son Stardust took over the role (see header photo) until Tiger was weaned and Visitor moved out of the garden.

NVQ was one of the most feared alpha-males of the neighbourhood; other male cats avoided him, and his reputation preceded him. One of his regular female companions was Twilight, and it came as a surprise to see NVQ kitten-sitting Twilight’s family in the fields while Twilight went about her business – obviously she trusted him enough to leave him in charge of her offspring.

This is the sort of photo which could ruin an alpha-male’s reputation, and NVQ would have been less than impressed if it had got out during the time we were living there.

But when it came to kitten-sitting, the male cat who seemed to be in the most demand was Thundercat. The first time he was spotted kitten-sitting was with Storm’s son Tumbleweed in the field.

Storm and her son were both completely grey, and there was no chance that Thundercat was in any way related to either of them – and yet there he was, patiently watching over Tumbleweed who was playing on some limestone steps.

The next kitten-sitting assignment for Thundercat was to watch over Cracker’s son Clover in the garden while Clover played.

Clover was a well-behaved kitten and would have been no trouble at all, and his mother Cracker must have been pleased with Thundercat’s services because, the following summer, Thundercat was once again engaged as chief kitten-sitter for another of Cracker’s kittens, Mr T.

It was not so unusual to see male cats interacting with kittens to whom they were related, either as their fathers or older brothers, but to see them with unrelated kittens from different families was something that did not happen every day.