We were at this former cattle ranch, now an observing site for amateur astronomers. On Friday, September 30, 2022, around 9 a.m., I noticed that Mittens had a live chipmunk in her mouth. I did not have the usual butterfly net available, as none of our cats had caught any animals in the last two weeks. I decided to watch Mittens. She would drop the chipmunk, let it run a short distance, and then pick it up again.
The chipmunk, who remained relatively calm, had a plan: If I can be dropped close enough to this tree, I can escape. Every time Mittens dropped the chipmunk, he would get closer to a tree. In her excitement, Mittens failed to notice this. Finally, after the sixth drop, the chipmunk dashed to the tree, with Mittens in hot pursuit. The chipmunk could reach the tree and climb up and out of Mittens’ reach.
If this had been a typical tree, often seen at various campsites, where the lower branches start at ten feet or more off the ground, Mittens would have climbed six or eight feet, turned around, scampered down, and given up the pursuit.
This tree was different. Mittens could see that this tree had four branches, three and four feet off the ground, and many more going all the way to the top, and his tree was only twenty feet high. She threw caution to the wind: I can get this chipmunk. I decided this was going to be exciting and could take some time, so I grabbed a chair to watch the action unfold.
Higher and higher they went, with the chipmunk staying two feet ahead. The chipmunk went out on a long branch, with Mittens slowly following. Mittens began to notice that the branch was bending more and more with her weight the further out they went. While Mittens is one of our lightest cats, along with Kittykat, she was ten times heavier than the chipmunk. Both animals seemed to understand this. The chipmunk was OK with branches less than an eighth of an inch in diameter, but Mittens was not. Feeling the branch bending more and more, she stopped. The chipmunk was still a foot away. The chipmunk made a stupid mistake. He could have waited for Mittens since he was comfortable on his thinner branch.
He jumped to another nearby branch and scampered down most of the tree. Meanwhile, Mittens cautiously descended headfirst, using her front paws to grip the many branches.
Now feeling in complete control, the chipmunk returned to the same tree and met Mittens coming down. Then, a game of peek-a-boo began with the chipmunk on the tree's opposite side. Somehow, the chipmunk knew that Mittens would need all four paws to hold on, as she was upside-down and thus unable to grab him. This taunting by the chipmunk went on for several minutes. Finally, the chipmunk passed Mittens on the other side of the trunk, where he settled on the same thin branch as before.
Meanwhile, Mittens, who had been in the tree for over ten minutes and probably had sore muscles, decided that further pursuit was hopeless and continued down, branch after branch until she could jump to the ground.
This adventure illustrates that terrifying and exciting are relative terms. What was exciting for Mittens was scary for the chipmunk. It also shows how gentle Mittens had been with the chipmunk, picking him up six times without injuring him.
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