the cats in my backyard are gone....

for a while, every morning i'd see a cat or two out in the backyard. my family's house has this big window i like to look out of when i'm eating breakfast, so i'd usually watch the trees sway or the occasional cat resting/passing through. sometimes i'd take pictures of them.

the two cats i usually saw were this brown one and this black and white one. the black and white one, who i've mentally named izutsumi, looks a lot younger than the brown one just judging by size and behavior. i mean, i don't know much about cats, but it's smaller and a lot less cautious than the other.

anyways, so that morning both were there, and i was taking a picture when the brown one noticed me. it stared me down. it's body language didn't seem to change much (i didn't pay attention to its tail, so maybe it did), but it stared at me with wide, gold eyes. i don't think it was happy to see me. not like it was particularly angry, but it seemed to either being trying to stare me down to assert dominance, or it was watching to see if i was going to make a move to attack it.

i tried to blink a bit and look in other directions to calm it, but it just kept staring... maybe i was too looming? not that i'm rather tall, but it just... i guess humans are pretty scary from a cat's height. i mean, think about it. if you were, like, a foot tall, you'd be pretty intimidated, right?

after a minute, it walked away, and disappeared into the woods. izutsumi was facing away from the window kinda just watched it leave. they still hadn't spotted me, so i moved on and made breakfast.

when i came back to the window, izutsumi was sitting where the brown one was. they still didn't notice me though, so i went to take more pictures. after a bit, they too noticed me. after another staredown, they left as well, and i haven't seen either of them ever since.

i'm incredibly disappointed with what happened. i assume they realized that that area was inhabited by humans and went to find another resting spot. they're probably feral or distrustful of strangers, which is very unfortunate because i thought about maybe interacting with them in some way sometime.

UPDATE: I SAW IZUTSTUMI AGAIN!!! they sat for a while and eventually walked away, but it might be progress