Been a long time gone...

Has it really been so long since I posted on this blog? Feels like an eternity!

I've been persuaded to have another go at the whole blogging thing, so brace yourselves cos winter is coming.  Just kidding!

  

Here's sweet little Clara tempting fate and climbing  into her favourite place :-)

 Brace for more chickens, more cats, and a lot of random stuff to follow.  I've now got less time, more animals, a Real Job, and a Masters Degree that's leaking out of my ears...  

New kitten - best puppy toy ever

Jenny and Clara - BFFs

To add to the crazy mix at our house, and because of the time share situation with our middle cat, Lister, who has left home and now lives up the road, I finally allowed Darling Daughter to talk me into getting another cat.  So we trotted up to the Animal Welfare League and came home with little Clara, a 16 week old dark tortoiseshell, with a massive purr and beautiful markings.  Jenny is absolutely smitten, Clara is extremely tolerant, and they spend a lot of time chasing each other around the garden and wrestling.

Growing Clara in a basket

In a nerdy moment I decided to name her after Clara Oswin Oswald, the new Dr Who assistant (or companion, as they call them these days), who made a great impression in the 2012 Christmas special.  Geek attack!

Borneo's most elusive feline photographed at unexpected elevation -

The elusive bay cat, taken by motion-triggered camera-trap in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Copyright: J. Brodie & A. Giordano.

Although known to science for 138 years, almost nothing is actually known about the bay cat (Pardofelis badia). This reddish-brown wild feline, endemic to the island of Borneo, has entirely eluded researchers and conservationists. The first photo of the cat wasn't taken until 1998 and the first video was shot just two years ago, but basic information remains lacking. A new camera trap study, however, in the Kelabit Highlands of the Malaysian state of Sarawak has added to the little knowledge we have by photographing a bay cat at never before seen elevations.

"We've never known conclusively whether the bay cat occurred at this high an elevation" said Jedediah Brodie, a Fulbright Research Scholar, who helped conduct the study. "Our record is an important contribution to existing knowledge of this unique and elusive species, and to this amazing ecosystem".

Top: Sunda clouded leopard also caught on camera trap in Pulong Tau National Park. Bottom: sambar also photographed in Pulong Tau National Park. Copyright: J. Brodie & A. Giordano.

The bay cat is listed by the IUCN Red List as Endangered. Thought to be naturally rare, the bay cat is also imperiled by deforestation due to logging and palm oil plantations on the island of Borneo, though the cat has been photographed in previously logged forests, but not plantations. The bay cat is not alone in its plight: four of Borneo's five wild cats are classified by the IUCN as threatened with extinction due to continued deforestation, but the bay cat is only one of those found no-where else in the world.

"Although Borneo’s lowland forests are without question a primary regional conservation concern, we are only beginning to learn the wealth of biodiversity that these highland regions harbor," Anthony Giordano, the founder and director of S.P.E.C.I.E.S., a new carnivore conservation organization. "The fact that we now know the bay cat occurs here could change the way we approach future efforts to locate it."

The conservationists warn that although the cat was photographed in Pulong Tau National Park, the park is only protected on paper.

"This is a 'paper park' for sure, currently with no budget, no infrastructure, and no staff, including no park rangers" explains Brodie. "Given that we have recorded such a rich mammal fauna, we urgently need to see that it receives the additional scientific attention and protection it deserves."

The camera trapping expedition also recorded several other endangered species including the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata), banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), sambar (Rusa unicolor), bearded pig (Sus barbatus), pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina), Hose's langur (Presbytis hosei), tufted ground squirrel (Rheithrosciurus macrotis), and Bulwer's pheasant (Lophura bulweri), all of the above of which are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List.




Captive bay cat. Photo by: Jim Sanderson.




Close-up of bay cat. Copyright: J. Brodie & A. Giordano.
Read more: http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0111-hance_baycat.html#ixzz22qQemqy8

Haiku for Tabby cat

Dear Tabitha Woo!
Your sweet roundness knows no bounds -
My son adores you.

Our darling Tabs is a giant loving puddle of fluffy smoochiness.  She is honestly the most affectionate cat I think I've ever met - to touch her is to be her friend, and stroking her vast fluffy belly does bring amazing peace to a troubled mind!  She is the perfect mood changer when little kids are grumpy - the suggestion 'go stroke Tabby's belly' is normally enough to cheer them up. 

She mended DS's broken heart when his darling Gemma cat died in 2010 - he has learned to love a cat again because of Tabby.  Good girl, Tabs! 

What a sweet little (*ahem* at 6kg, hardly little) fluffer she is.  Not the sharpest tool in the shed by any means, but totally adorable none the less.

Prettiest cat in Adelaide (tm) - Haiku

Oh Princess Ada,
My fluffy little pusskin:
Grey, white, bony, soft.

Wow, I've never written a haiku to a cat before, that was fun!  Ada is of course totally unimpressed... 

Ada (AKA Pretty Princess Cat, or The Pocket-sized Princess of Perfection, or Trotty Trot Cat) is a grand old lady cat of 11 years, we got her as a tiny tiny stray kitten, and she was my baby until our kids came along.  She's still tiny, just 2.8kg.  My ickle wickle princess licks my feet while I'm sitting on the loo in the morning (TMI maybe?), and sleeps on my feet in bed.  She is named after the first programming language that DH learned at uni (ADA, which is in turn named after Lady Ada Lovelace, the 'first lady' of computers).  Total nerd attack!