He is one of the cats... or she, but I think it's a he.

I am quite busy trying to prune the ivy that towers extremely high from the other side of the fence... and hangs annoyingly long on my side, almost touching the ground, trying to take over my livingspace.

It takes a bit of concentration. I need to put my foot well, too prevent an injury. And no leaf should drop, otherwise the ivy gets grip on my soil.
The sun is burning... my back aches.

Then there is something changed, the birds are silent.
They don't always call when a cat enters the area.
Sometimes they are just silent.
Maybe they know the cat was focussed on something else.

My back door.

He almost slides nearer and nearer to the door...

When I turn, he stops. Looks at me.
And I look at him. Surprised he is already that far in the garden....

His decision is clear: no threat, let's enter that house.

But I don't want him there, I am allergic to cats.

I step forward, but that might make him slip into the house even faster and more decisive.

So I clap my hands and make a strange sound.

The effect was as intended: he almost jumps and turns at the same time.
Runs off....

I follow him...

He escapes by taking a ssmall path near the gardenhousee and he wriggles himself through a small hole between fence and hedge...

The magpie laughs... He squeeks like saying: well done!

Then the other birds appear and start singing again....

.....

Image: Webadgood

 

The magpie that often visits my garden has some peculiar habits.

One of them is warning me when someone walks to the front door.
But he doesn't warn me for our favorite mailman!
So I think he is a very clever one.

A while ago I thought I saw a rat disappear around the little wall behind the house. I was not sure. But I asked the daughter who lives elsewhere for some dirty content of the cat litter box.
She had put it in little sealed bags.

I threw the content of one in the corner of the wall.

Never saw any rodents.

Today I sat reading in the gardenhouse, when suddenly the magpie sat on my roof and sounded the alarm.
He made a lot of noise, far more than usual.

I thought there might be a cat in one of the gardens.
So I stood up and clashed the lid of the bin very loud.
That makes all cats jump and run away.

But the magpie kept yelling and soon there were two other magpies sounding the alarm too.
They were sitting on the roof above the neigbouring gardens.
Never heard three make so much noise.
It sounded they were following some animal going towards my garden.

I took one of the little bags and emptied it at that side of my garden.

Within two seconds everything was calm.
First "my" mapie stopped calling, then the other two
So whatever alarmed them returned to where it came from.

Thanks birds!!