Life of a cat / Katzenleben

The jay bird

The first fallen acorns had drawn the jay bird to alight in the backyard where it was about to meet its end.
One after the other it scrutinised the small fruit of the tree, picking them up. Some were eaten directly, others used to build up reserves to outlive the winter.

Little did it know that soon, it would help nourishing another being to survive.

The cat was once again on the prowl.
The jay bird had unknowingly made itself conspicuous by going back and forth between the yard and its provision camp with the cat only one yard over.
Slipping through a narrow hole in a garden fence allows the cat to enter the garden housing the balaniferous tree without alarming the prey.
For some minutes the cat but observes the behaviour of its prey. Crouched down, hiding within the pullulating grasses, nearly lying down on the floor but tense, concentrating on the hunt.

With the bird occupied the cat begins to sneak up to it, halting as soon as the bird tries to identify what moved.
The cats legs are bent so far that its torso is nearly touching the floor but in a way that it can start the crucial sprint at any moment. The ears, turned towards the object of desire, are picking up any minor sounds which the cat analyses to decide when the best moment to pounce is present.

Though it seems like an entire eternity passes before anything happens, only moments separate the cats entering of the yard and the death of the jay bird.

The bird still hasn't noticed the impending menace when the cat decides that it is close enough for the attack.

From its crouched position it starts a sprint, not loosing its posture.
When the bird notices the cat, the latter has already halved the distance and raised from the crouched position.

Now alarmed, the bird flutters up, screeching in panic, trying desperately to escape the predator.
Its closeness to the pergola is the last determining factor that seals its fate:

With a powerful and perfectly executed leap the cat manages to get a hold of the bird in the air, sinking its claws into the its flesh.
Screeching louder and intensifying its struggle for escape and thus survival, the jay bird nearly manages to break free while still airborne.

Nearly.

Both hunter and prey crash against the pergola mid-leap in such a way that allows the cat to clamp its jaws around a wing.
The insertion of the needle sharp teeth wipes out all possibilities of escape however unlikely they might have been.
Without the ability to escape up in the sky the bird is made irremediably inferior in this fight.

Had it not been for the crash against the pergola the bird might have escaped.

It still struggles and screeches as best it can but it is fruitless.

While the observation of the bird took some minutes, the sequence composed of sprint, leap and taking hold of the prey was over within the blink of an eye.