Cats and more cats (part 2)

Up until this time, I had one cat.  Our KitKat.  Found in the barn as a kitten, bottle fed, nursed back to health, and now our cat.

KitKat.

So, I trapped 8 cats over two days.  Drove that long drive to Austin (several times) to have them spayed/neutered.  A friend of mine, who knows animals, wanted a "shop cat".  She has the ability and the knowledge to re-home a stray, and took one of the cats I had spayed.  She was ready with a large cage and a carrier to keep the cat enclosed for weeks until it can call her place her home.  I have no doubt it will be safe and well fed.

And another of the cats I trapped I have not seen since.  Its possible it was some one's pet (now spayed and ear clipped......oooopps).

So, that leaves me with a community of 6 cats.  So far.

Bob is a male tabby, very smart and has an amazingly beautiful color pattern.  He seems to be in charge of a subset of the community, the four tabbies.  Would it be called a pride?

Bob

Rose is a small tortoiseshell/tabby.  She is always with Bob.

Rose

Two tabbies are with Bob and Rose.  One is a male, the other is a female, but I don't know which is which.  This so makes me regret I did not take pictures of them when I took them in to be spayed/neutered in their traps.  So, I am calling them Dart (very shy and runs at the first sound of my coming with dark tabby markings) and Logan (a "washed out" tabby color).  I think Logan is the female.

Frank is a large bicolor.   He is always the last to find the food, and sometimes, like a couple of nights ago, he sits on the driveway and wails (which makes me think he missed his supper).  I see him alone, mostly, sometimes with Cookie.

Frank and Cookie

Cookie is a true calico.  She, too, is very shy.  I can only see her at a distance most days.  I call her my "teenager".  She runs and hops, leans into Frank when he is feeding and head butts him.  He just keeps on keeping on.

My routine is to feed in one spot, in a clearing on our 5 acres.  I give about half a portion in two bowls.  I am pretty noisy as I approach, sometimes I see a cat, sometimes I don't.  I call, "cat-cat-cat" and shake the food.  Then I leave that spot to fill a couple of other bowls, one under a table, the other closer to the property line, for the cats I have not yet trapped.  I come back to the first site, where usually the four tabbies are eating.  I shake the bowl, they move off about 20 feet, I fill their bowls, then I back off about 20 feet and sit and watch them as they come back and feed.  They get their fill, then stretch, walk off a couple of feet and lay around like one sees lions do on nature programs.  We watch each other for awhile.  Then I leave.  Rose is curious, has walked a couple of feet towards me occasionally while I keep very still, then she returns to her group.

So far, this is like some nature project.  I keep notes, watch them (and they watch me).