Last night, my cat killed a mourning dove. I saw them, cat and not-yet-dead bird, in the grass outside the kitchen window. It was too late to save the dove, but at least it could die in peace. I lured the cat in with a can of wet food. When my husband came home, he cleaned up the carnage.
This morning, I noticed black fur in the mock strawberries. When I got closer I could see it was a tail. Next to it was a cat's leg, the foot attached, but everything else gone. Not one of my cats. Some other cat attracted to our yard maybe because of the good hiding places the rocks and flowers create, or because of the smells my cats have left behind. When I ran back inside, my husband said, "We heard that." He had heard a cat screaming outside our window after we went to bed. I was blessedly already asleep because I heard nothing. We think a fox got him.
Again, my husband went out to clean up. This time not so agreeably. He shoveled the remains into the trash can to take them to the Dumpster. I looked at the spot after he was done. Wasps swarmed over the blood left on the mulch and a little piece of gut left behind. I scooped it up and followed to the Dumpster.
We live in Denver. Not in the burbs or the foothills. In the middle of the city where you get almost used to drive-bys, home invasions and serial killings (a few summers ago, bodies were found in the backyard of a house walking distance from ours). This Wild Kingdom I am not used to.
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