Photo: Which Kitty?
I moved the game camera to a new position to see if I could capture if anyone is using the doghouse as a shelter. But it results in views like this at the feeder:
Who is this? Is it Sneaky? Boomer? Walter? Clearly not Sneaky. But is that a silvery or a brown/tan undercoat? Walter is silvery, and Boomer is brown/tan.
I walk back in the photos to catch the cat approaching the feeder, and this is what we see:
It looks like Boomer. He appears to have a brown or tan undercoat, and he appears to be an unaltered male (although, when Dr. Val does a neuter, she seems to leave them some vanity, ahem — I haven’t gotten close enough to Walter since his operation to tell how much bragging rights she left him).
Now, this kitty certainly appears to be Walter — a silvery undercoat and slightly different leg striping from the kitty above (I tried to get an image with a similar positioning).
Can you tell the difference? What clues you in?
Actually, comparing those two moving shots, I think those are the same kitty. I started looking for differences in the stripes (they say stripes can be as unique as fingerprints) but I kept coming up with similarities instead. I think the difference you’re seeing in the banding on the legs just has to do with their leg position and what angle you’re seeing them from.
If you look at the front left leg, there’s a stripe with an unusual curve to it close to the bottom. On the front right leg, there’s broken stripe close to the paw with a full band just above it – hard to see on the lower picture, but it looks the same to me. Add to that the stripe going from behind the left ear to the left shoulder, and I’m feeling pretty confident that this is the same cat.
I feel so CSI right now. 😉
You may be right. We have seen two cats at the same time in two places, so we KNOW there are two. Walter is more silvery, and Boomer is more tannish in his undercoat, BUT the lighting in the photographs makes it difficult to discern. Boomer doesn’t run as quickly when he sees us, and, of course, Walter has been neutered. Boomer has not.