In later years, the earlier domination of orange alpha-males dwindled, and the year following the passing of The Cat saw a mix of colours roaming the fields.

Two alpha-males from The Cat’s time were still in the neighbourhood, namely Mr Bright and NVQ. They were both showing their age; Mr Bright had damaged his front leg not once but twice (probably because he refused to slow down or accept any help with his injury) and it was now permanently bent. The younger wannabe males, however, still accorded him the same level of respect, especially when it came to Thundercat who ran across the road in a blind panic rather than come face to face with Mr Bright in the front path at feeding time. I saw the wheels of the car hit Thundercat, but he was very lucky and survived with nothing more than bruising (I assume). And that just about sums up Mr Bright’s continuing reputation with the other males.

NVQ looked leaner and older but that didn’t mean he was any less willing to take on an up-and-coming younger male and teach him a lesson.

So, all in all, NVQ and Mr Bright were still forces with which to be reckoned and their reign as alpha-males continued.

Then there was Thundercat who had started coming to the garden as an aspiring alpha-male and had risen up the pecking order quickly; he had been easily accepted by the Garden Family and had become a regular face at feeding time. The younger generation of male cats seemed to have realised that actively looking for a fight (as NVQ was wont to do) was not going to get them anywhere, and they therefore seemed to reserve fighting as a last resort, thus avoiding injury and protecting their place at the feeding bowl.

And there were two new names – Izit and Muffin. Izit was a mature, well-built cat with peach coloured fur, and an imposing and intimidating figure. He was obviously used to being a well-established male in whichever local colony he had come from, and assumed that he could step into a similar role when he arrived during the pandemic, looking for a new source of food. And his experience and fighting skill meant that his plan worked and he quickly became one of the top alpha-males.

Muffin was Phantom’s son, and we had seen him grow from being a kitten in the fields opposite into a confident two-year-old, with his eye on becoming an alpha-male. Muffin was very wary, and had worked his way up the pecking order by identifying his potential, future adversaries and picking them off one by one during his adolescent and young adult months. His strategy had worked well, and there was little doubt that he and Thundercat had bright futures ahead of them when it came to dominating the locale.

None of these males were friendly and NVQ and Izit actively avoided the humans. After over three years of coming to eat, Mr Bright occasionally allowed a brief human touch, for instance to remove a tick from his ear or fur. Maybe given more time, Thundercat and Muffin would have been more tolerant of human interaction, but as it stood, these males were all independent, solitary and ambitious cats living a feral life in the neighbourhood.

The header photo shows Muffin and Thundercat, head-to-head on the terrace wall. In terms of age and experience, Thundercat was superior, but Muffin was honing his art by picking his fights more with cats of a similar standing, rather than the bigger well-established males – a smart move by anyone’s standards.