The Penny Drops

In the interests of justice, I dearly hope I'm never subpoened to testify as an eye witness. Turns out my observational skills are downright atrocious!

Looking through my photos this morning, it slowly dawned on me that there is more than one orange tom cat visiting my yard. In fact there are two very different, although similarly coloured, animals.

Subject No. 1: A mature feral tom I've seen hunting and foraging about the grounds for at least a couple of years. He is very wary and evasive. Most of my sightings of him have been in a distant field or at night from my trail camera. I've been calling him "Oscar".

Subject No. 2: A younger looking tom with more white markings and for whom I've recently made a neutering appointment. I have also been calling him, Oscar. Mistaken identity! I'll rename and refer to him as "Gus" from now on.

The battle scarred tom I've been calling "Oscar" in January 2014.

This year's model of ginger tom, renamed "Gus".

Now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, I realize the two ginger toms are very, very different looking animals. Even their behaviour is quite dissimilar.