by Matthew Cobb
This lovely photo popped up in my Tw*tter feed with the caption “Cats waiting for the fishermen to return, unknown date”.
There are loads of copies of this on the internet, virtually all of them on Tumblr where it has been reposted, none of them with any credit that I can see. If anyone knows the name of the photographer, or the date and location it was taken, let us know and we will give due credit.
The cat that adopted my parents – Tabitha – used to sit by the river Wensum in central Norwich watching anglers in a very similar way!
Reblogged this on The Road.
The fool hath said in his heart that ceiling cat cannot walk on water.
I think someone said it here recently, but to steal and to paraphrase Anne Isabella Ritchie:
“Give a cat a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him where to wait for fishermen, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Link fail:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/give-a-man-a-fish.html
“Cats waiting for the fishermen to return, unknown date”
Great pic. The “, unknown date” of course refers to the date of the pic, but one could also say:
Yes, the cats haven’t been told what date the fishermen will return, that’s why they’re waiting in trepidation. Poor kittys.
Brilliant!
I think they know exactly when the fishermen will return, and it’s any minute now. There’s clearly something out there on the water that has their attention. And it’s pretty close, too, judging from their converging sightlines.
“unknown” date is probably any date at that location!
To inject a little biology into it, the cats appear to me to be overdispersed, in just the same way and probably for the same reason that great egrets along a slough are.
“Overdispersed” is a new term for me . . . but I’m thinking it’s rather self-explanatory?
What an evocative photograph. Ah, the power of black and white photography.
When I looked at it I was reminded of spacing between critters on say power lines which I see daily (pigeons mostly but sometimes starlings). I cross a bridge almost daily on my bike on one side of which is a long power line; more often then not, the wires are occupied but orderly. There was an article about this phenomenon in WaPo in January for which see here.
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Kittehs, I can’t seem to get enough of them. Mr. Larsson’s paraphrase made me smile out loud.
I have seen this in real life. When I was a kid we used to drive down to docks on the more obscure bayous of Galveston Bay to buy unculled shrimp at low prices. The fishermen would throw out any small fish or squid at the top of the batch to the cats that lived under the buildings. Cats would appear when they heard boat engines.
Reminds me of the cats of Essouira, Morocco,on the coast near Marrakesh,which I visited in the 1970s.
Unlike the usual scrawny mangy street cats in most 3rd World (which it was at the time) cities,these were all sleek and well-fed. In fact,when I offered one the remains of my sardine sandwich, it gave a disdainful sniff and walked away.
I discovered why when I saw the local people walking away from the fishing harbour all stopping to offer fresh fish to the cats,who condescendingly accepted their tribute.
Cat city
http://www.budgettraveltalk.com/2012/06/03/essaouira-cat-city/
I can haz Cthulhuburger?