"Bad" Bat! Bad Hawk?

   When Son named the rescued kitten last year, he took the "b" from black and the "at" from cat and squished them together to make "Bat".  He said that it could fit in so many instances from black cat to beautiful cat to big cat to bad cat.  Well, he could have stopped before he got to that last one but it slipped out.  Thus, we have Bat, the cat.  The descriptions fit well.  He is definitely one large, beautiful, black cat but that bad...that bad...oh, geez!

  Actually, Bat is not truly a bad cat.  He is just a cat being a cat.  This morning, that "being a cat" got him a good scolding.  Bat proudly led us to a bird...not just any bird...he brought us right to a dead rail.  Oh, my.  Bat, did you kill that bird??  How in the world could he catch a rail?  Never before have any of our outdoor cats gone hunting in the marsh to find a rail but, well, Bat is not any of our other cats.  He is different, to say the least.  He is definitely a hunter and in just a year's time of teaching himself, he has mastered the art of blending in with his surroundings.  He has the silent walk down pat and can leap far beyond what seems logical.  And...did I mention...he is large...very large...not fat...just one big, muscle-bound cat.  Critters do not stand a chance against him if he takes a notion of smacking them.  

  The photo above is not of the bird that was killed as it was from several years ago.  It was the same type and perhaps one of this one's brood. The killing of any rail saddens me as they are some of my critter friends...thus the scolding.  I cannot be 100% certain that Bat caught the bird but he was suspiciously happy with the "finding" of the...ummm...dead bird.  I buried the little bird in the garden and was returning the shovel to the greenhouse when I heard a ruckus down behind the canebrake.  THAT BAT!!!  I scurried down to the marsh edge to hear yet another rail in distress.  I was ready to smack a cat when a hawk flew up from the mudflat with a bird in its clutches!  Oh, my.  Maybe I scolded Bat to quickly?  Maybe Bat had just found the bird after the hawk dropped it?  Maybe the hawk was the culprit all along?  Well...perhaps the scolding will make Bat think twice about catching a bird.  Probably not.  Bad Cat!!!  Bad Hawk!!