Blackberry's journal

This evening, while Charles and I were cooking the dinner, Bramble came in through the cat-flap bearing a tiny burden.  We couldn't think what it was, in fact, I thought it was an old teabag he'd found somewhere, but it turned out to be a tiny bat!!

We chased him all over the house and eventually Charles cornered him and took it from him.  It was bleeding slightly, but it was still moving.  We had no idea what to do, so in the end I took it out and put it on the roof of the shed.  It was sooo tiny!

We locked the cat-flap so Bramble couldn't get after it again, and later, when I checked the shed roof, it was gone.

Charles is worried in case we might get into trouble for disturbing a bat, but I explained that so far courts had declined to make cat-owners responsible for their cats' actions.

How on earth Bramble managed to catch it, I can't conceive.  I didn't even know there were bats in the vicinity.  Charles was very upset, because he could hear the high-pitched squeaks the poor thing was making but my ears are no longer that good, so at least I was spared that.

Bramble was very indignant and sulked for, oooo, 10 minutes until he was fed.

This is another good reason for not letting the cats out at night.  Usually Charles has them locked in from dusk onwards, but he must have forgotten today.  Later on Phoebe got upset by fireworks going off outside.

Phoebe just catches mice, which we're rather glad of, but so far, apart from a selection of moths, flies and butterflies, Bramble has killed a blue-tit and caught this bat.  What next, I wonder!

I'm worried about the bat now.  I do hope it's all right and hasn't just crawled away to die.