There was something peculiar about a cat I saw at the mini-field of the pavement.
From the back, it looked like the cat was slouching on the grass. If you looked a little closer, its frontal legs were still and the other two legs were bent just like a rabbit's. Its head did not move, as if it was looking at something. I immediately recognized this posture, based on my memory from watching wildlife documentaries from the Animal Planet channel.
Usually, the cats on my campus were either sleeping or begging for food, and they were playful. It was rare to find a cat in its predatory mode. It was a fresh scene that I decided to stop myself and witness silently. Even two more girls were interested in the cat's next move. It was an unspoken agreement for us to avoid creating any form of disturbance upon the cat.
My first instinct was to search for the cat's prey. Positioning to the same eye level as the cat's, I scanned through the green field. I was looking for a piece of meat, or a rat, or worse, a snake. I was wrong. It was looking at three small brown quails that were 5 meters away. Together, their little feet hopped like little children, unaware of the danger afar.
The cat leaned forward steadily, making a few steps forward before stopping itself and continued to observe the little birdies. Then it moved a little nearer, and nearer. The girls began to whisper to each other, betting if the cat would reach its prey. Meanwhile, I took my phone out and recorded the cat's movement, trying to capture the feline's graceful motions and its predatory nature.
It seemed like the quails had noted on the cat's arrival, causing them to flee away. Losing the sight of its prey, the cat relaxed its muscles and changed to its tamer image by strutting around the pavement and mewing softly. One of the girls tried to pet its black and white fur while the other girl deliberately avoided the approaching cat. Just like any cat, it circled the first girl and showed her its affections.
Later on, the cat noticed a lonely quail in the grass, one that had accidentally parted from its friends. Once again, the feline crouched its body and had its eyes set on the target. The same tenseness came back to the atmosphere, as the three of us zipped our mouth but to spectate this game of hunt. In the end, the bird flew away and rejoined its friends at the other side of the field. The cat eventually gave up and continued to entertain humans.
As much as I wanted to continue to watch the upcoming progress, the evening mosquitoes were annoying. I had no idea if the cat had managed to catch its prey and if it was planning to eat or mutilate it. I discovered something that is not about the determination or the patience of the cat, it was the interest that we had about nature, and the thirst for violence.
Completed by 24th Feb 2020