Regular feeding times were not important to the feral cats from the fields as they prefered to have no interaction with humans. But once they learnt that there was food and water available, they came to the bowls as and when as they pleased, visiting mostly between dusk and dawn.

The humans were by now fascinated by these feline comings and goings; the fleeting glimpse of a tail disappearing over the front gate or dark shadows of unidentified cats in the path at night posed so many questions, and so an action camera was purchased and placed outside the front door. Of course, most of the footage was shot in the dark which meant grainy images of sometimes hard-to-identify cats, but all the same, with the existing photos and sightings of the cats from the fields, we were able to identify most of them.

And a surprisingly regular visitor was Mystery Cat – one of the shyest of the visiting cats. She would never have been in the path, had the humans been there and it is obvious from the way she is looking at the red light on the camera (on the ground outside the front door) that she was deeply suspicious of everyone and everything.

More footage showing her with other cats only served to further intrigue the humans and underlined the fact that these cats had their own relationships with each other, relationships forged in the fields, unseen by human eyes.

Only a short portion of each night was captured on camera, but you can imagine the excitement the humans felt when downloading the previous night’s files, wondering who would be on film – was it someone we recognised? Who had been to the bowls? Who had been miaowing at 2am? Who trod in the water bowl?

The feral cats had their own world, and we were only allowed the smallest glimpse into it, but we loved every moment.