Yesterday, the remains of Tropical Storm Barry came through. Ringtail, the female feral I've been taming gave us quite a surprise! Diane called to me to come quickly, so I came running to see what she was on about. I'd seen Ringtail up and about a little earlier and now she was up again, in the rain, with a kitten trailing along after her. Diane and I went out to see, and Ringtail let us come right up to her, as she has been doing for some time. The kitten, however, ducked beneath a car and climbed up into the wheel well. Diane reached up into the wheel well and pulled the kitten out. Meanwhile, Ringtail diappeared back down the storm drain. Not knowing what else to do, we brought the poor bedraggled kitten inside. About an hour later, Ringtail appeared again with another kitten. This time we brought both her and the kitten inside. Once she had settled the kittens in, eaten a couple of cans of food, nursed the kittens and got them to sleep, she jumped up on the window sill and called repeatedly out the window. On the advice of a friend who does animal rescue, we took her back outside and she promptly went right back down the storm drain. It was another couple of hours before she reappeared. Diane said she had seen her running across the yard. I went back out to see if I could find her. Eventually, I went over to the storm drain to call her and saw her peering out, with another little nose peeking out beside her. She came out and rubbed against my legs, calling to the kitten as if to tell her I could be trusted. Eventually, the kitten came within reach, and I picked it up. I heard a mewing, looked down, and saw another kitten coming out. This kitten, however, was too scared to come out and kept ducking back down the drain. About this time, Di came out to see what I was doing. While she tried to persuade the kitten to come out, I brought the one I had caught inside and tucked it in with its siblings. When I went back out, Diane handed me the fourth kitten, still struggling and spitting as if to convince either us or itself that it wasn't scared. We brought the kitten and Ringtail back inside, and she settled in with the kittens. She seemed quite content to stay in the middle room with her kittens until it started to get dark. Then she went to the window and started calling again. This time when I took her out, she only stuck her head into the storm drain and called, then repeated the process at the other storm drain. Then she came back to the patio near the steps where I put the food for the ferals, calling all the while. After a little while, the new tom, whom I call Young Tom, to distinguish him from Old Tom who passed away over the winter, came wandering up, and Ringtail went over to him. I don't know what he said, but she whapped him on the nose, and they wandered off for a while together. In the meantime, I brought out food for Tom and went back inside. When I came back out, she was standing at the door crying to get in to her babies. Tom, meanwhile, was eating; and when he finished he ran off into the night yelling loudly as if he couldn't believe what she had done. She came back in with me, and now the whole family is safely ensconsed in our middle room with our resident cats safely shut out of it.
We are planning to foster her and the kittens until the kittens are old enough to be rehomed and then find homes for them. In the meantime, I have the delicate balancing act of looking after and socializing Ringtail and her four kittens without our resident cats getting jealous.
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