The fact that only one one of the four alpha-males mentioned recently were still visiting the garden a year later might be a testament to the success of that one remaining cat – NVQ. He was single-minded and ruthless, and it took a mature and powerful cat to stand up to him.

During the pandemic year when there was an influx of cats, most of the males were intent on surviving long enough to weather the storm and return to their original feeders; not many of these new males had their sights set on working their way up the alpha-male ladder and coming head-to-head with NVQ.

Sunday had disappeared for some months, and returned older but not necessarily wiser as, despite his advancing years, he would still fight if provoked.

But there were two new faces, two potential new alpha-males who were confident enough to make their mark and take NVQ on. They were Mr Bright (who arrived before the pandemic), and Izit (who arrived in the spring of the pandemic year).

Mr Bright (also shown in the header photo) was a solid, powerful, stocky orange cat. He was mature and confident and (most importantly) not frightened of NVQ. Mr Bright was not friendly, but neither was he as skittish as NVQ so he fitted in better with the Garden Family (who disliked NVQ).

Izit appeared out of the blue one morning at breakfast time. He was a large adult male with longer fur than some of the others, and pale orange or peach in colour. He was feral and kept his distance from the humans, pausing only to advise us that his name was Izambard The Italian, but we could call him Izit. It was obvious from his posture and bearing that he felt he moved in the alpha-male circles, and was not afraid to take on the likes of NVQ and Mr Bright.

Any other new faces were content to leave fighting over territory to NVQ, Mr Bright and Izit; there were up-and-coming wannabe alpha-males, but they were not ready to take on the more established names.