A new addition

Isn't he beautiful?! He's been passing through our garden for a couple of months or so and originally we thought he was someone's pet so we hadn't been feeding him. Then one day I took a closer look at him and realised that he was in a mess and obviously was living rough.

He had a HUGE mat of fur on his back which must have got snagged in barbed wire or something similar and in his struggle to free himself he'd ripped the fur off his back on both sides of the mat. It must have hurt him so much :(

He let me carefully remove the matted fur from his back (it was like a patch of carpet on his back, it must have felt so uncomfortable)- here you can see where the fur has started to grow back already there. Just having this removed must have been a huge relief to him.

For a stray cat he's quite friendly (very much on his own terms of course) and will let you pet him - he loves headrubs!

Shannon in Portmagee very kindly let us borrow her cat-trap again and so we set out to catch him - Bertie is NOT impressed!!!

Fortunately I was able to lure him in and he's now been neutered! He isn't so keen on me since I trapped him - it's such a stressful experience; like James, he also really freaked out when he realised that he was trapped. I think it will take him a while yet before he trusts me again - he disappeared for 24 hours once we let him free after he'd recovered from the operation, but has since arrived back in the garden and will let Peter feed him!