Feral Green Eyes Photo

Photographer’s Note

"Caught in the feral (cat)act..."

Tonight I surprised a feral cat that was hunting for lil critters. Since I had not seen my pair of wild red squirrels lately I wondered what might have occured. I stalked "Patches" here, and although it (she or he? ) has beautiful eyes I am not pleased about its hunt for birds and squirrels.

Yes, that is a busted lobstertrap, on top of an old - by now leaking - rowboat...

The knapweed in the foreground feeds goldfinches before they head South or are caught by ferals like "Patches".

See also: http://www.feralcat.com/ and:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cat

PS Re-posted a zoomed version.
PS2 I am kinda cranky with (these) feral cats;
my lil friends, the squirrels have disappeared!
I am waiting for the eagles to migrate thru,
and restore the balance.

Silke, Viv007 has marked this note useful

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asival (4265) 2006-12-21 4:11

Hi Jay

Amazing eyes isn't it? Probably because of your flash

You need to do some PS on that image to remove the little branch in the foreground

Keep sending your images

Assi

:)

turkamerikali (4772) 2006-12-21 16:20

Hi Jay,
Nice Cat capture my friend.
I like your pov,cat's pose,dof,focus,framing and note.TFS
Tolga

anniejo (0) 2006-12-23 17:15

Love the green eyes on this interesting lil cat........and the look she returns to the photographer!!!
Nice that she sat still......long enough for a good shot at her. Good composition and lots of nice colour contrast...........the dark and light, set off by the GREEEEN eyes!!!

Silke (3023) 2007-02-10 7:30

Hi Jay
I love the pose that you have caught her in. She looks as if she is about to pounce on YOU!
However, the green eyes are caused by the flash so I am doing a little workshop to restore her eyes to something closer to their natural colour.

[workshop] [compare] +

Emiel_Skyfreak (2976) 2007-06-18 4:45

What is the difference between this specific cat and for example, European domestic cats ?
Needless to say, I have read the page on Wikipedia. I don't see really big differences, I think I could encounter this cat around the corners of my house. It still looks like a domestic cat, although it might only live on the streets. Maybe it walked away from his or her owner. Like my own cat did last weekend, we searched for her in the middle of the night. But phew...we have found her.

To me, it still is a pet, but this depends on ones own interpretation. See the WHY WHY WHY topic in the forums on this discussion.

Besides these things, I also think the internal flash of the camera did not make the best of it. It spoiled the appearance of the eyes and the eyes...they are important. Silke mentioned the eyes allready.
I like the workshop, it is useful. An external flash could probably achieve a better result, but presence of a ceiling or a wall to bounce the flash on is recommended. Which is difficult if you want to capture a cat living on the streets.

I stick with one point.