two small mysteries of the animal world

Around noon the other day, I saw a steady stream of moths flying north along the BART track: not dense enough to call them a flock, let alone a swarm, but enough that I always had a few of them in view. (Maybe they do that every day; I wouldn’t know.) When I came back a few hours later they were gone.

In the dawn’s early light, Pillow (a cat) often sits at the one window that’s near a tree, seeming to watch the birds. He sometimes makes a queer choking noise, like kekekekek; Dad says his cat sometimes makes the same noise. I conjecture that they’re trying to sound like a bird, though I wouldn’t have thought their little brains could conceive of such a trick.

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3 Responses to two small mysteries of the animal world

  1. Andre Manoel says:

    My girlfriend’s cats do that noise when they are looking at an insect or other animal they are about to hunt.

  2. Anton says:

    They’re not imitating the prey, then.

  3. Anton says:

    Someone told me they’re rehearsing the killing bite.

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