Red in Tooth and Claw

Other blogs have their book tours and their babies, now I bring you my own circle of life.

This morning I left the house for work to find Porch Kitty trotting forward with a whole dead chipmunk in his mouth. He was only out for 2 hours that morning and I've never seen a chippie in my neighborhood: the squirrels dominate. Also, both front paws were declawed by previous owner. So, the rodent had a better chance than usual. I was pleased as any mother at a dance recital. I petted my cat while he had a corpse in his mouth and told him how proud and impressed I was. Mighty Hunter!

Though there was nary a slice of compunction pie at the grisly scene, I did draw the line at running upstairs to get the camera. Who will admit to being the target audience for dead chipmunk photos? Even totally precious action shots of proud killer kitty with prey al dente?

The dead still adorned the porch at my return, so chipmunk salvage was quickly carried out.

This is the preying mantis that was standing near the body. Puzzling since I hadn't thought that they were carnivorous, but soon realized that the mantis was staking out the corpse flies and having quite the nice supper. Chillin like the old guy at the college club. The mantis got quite perturbed when I leaned in, and started to book it towards the plants, but was determined to enjoy his fly To Go.

At least someone feasted.