Well here's my kat. He's a cantankerous, lazy, overweight, always hungry, fraidy-cat but I guess that's why I like him. Not an easy client to photograph though. And here's my pet Parrot. I like him a lot! He always talks to me. His favorite phrase is "It's hot". and "What's up". He's my pal.
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My boys
Billy
and Ruby
He's a bit tricky. Sometimes he sits differently and deliberately throws off the sundial calibration, making us think it is dinner time way earlier than it actually is.
This is Ruby's mum Bella, who sadly got run over. She used to go hunting in the vineyards, and bring us back a tasty rabbit. We were surprised to find out she was half a kilometre away when she got run over. Thankfully, Ruby is too timid to roam, but he is the most gentle cat we have had, and never uses his claws. I am loath to share this picture as it has been sharpened to within an inch of its life, and has lots of blown pixels, but I no longer have the original RAW file
We have various assorted budgies. One died while Chris was away some years back, and I replaced it with what I 'thought' was a close enough clone (it had wings and a beak, and made the right noises) but Chris saw through it in an instant.
Not really pets, but Ruby sometimes lets these guys sit on the sundial.
Chris does not like dogs, and won't let me have one. I had two English Setters and a Border Collie back in the UK, and I would dearly love to have a dog here. I walk the neighbour's dogs when they are away, but it is not the same thing.
Nice idea for a thread Cactus. I am looking forward to seeing Dave's pet whippet, Ged's Irish Wolf Hound and Jane's not quite tame Mountain Lion.
She has now passed from old age, but our Serval at about 3, helping replace a ceiling bulb
Goodness John! I am impressed. What sort of experience was it looking after what I suspect was a not entirely domesticated cat? I just happened to have been reading about the Asian Leopard cat a few days, in the context of it being crossed with domestic breads in the creation of breads like the Bengal. One of the most astonishing things I took from that article was the price some people are willing to pay for such an exotic bread, with $40,000 being at the top end of that scale. But I also read that the closer a particular cat's breading is to the Asian Leopard cat, the more difficult it is to truly domesticate them.
The Bengal cat above is beautiful, but pictures I found of Serval cats knocked it right out of the park when it comes to feline beauty. Those huge ears are extraordinary, and you have to think the result of many many years of evolution. It must have been a privilege and a joy to have such a cat as a pet.
Well Trevor.Dennis​! I was drinking my morning coffee scrolling through your quite lovely photos until I got to the last one and choked!
But yes, that is my mountain lion, and quite tame.
This is my favorite picture of my two Siamese. One died a year ago; the other a year or two before that. I got one as a kitten and the other when she was a year old. They were inseparable. The dark one was demented and mean to everyone except the two of us. The light one was as sweet as sweet could be. We loved both of them.
The Maine Coon arrived several years later with my husband. She was an instant enemy of my two. Most of the time. Not always. Not when it was cold. This amused us greatly. Here she is with one of my Siamese.
A closeup of one who died last spring.
Here is the Maine Coon while I am trying to study for an Access class.
Here is the Maine Coon right now. And she is the only one left. 
Here's my cat - he'll be three in April, and is very social and affectionate.
When I'm doing things outside, he often wants to join in, and these three pictures were taken while I was testing a lens, using a tripod.
He positioned himself inside the frame several times.
To see him properly, right click the images, and open in new tab.
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The pixel count is of course important for detail, but equally important is the physical size of the sensor - this is is a medium format camera with a 33 x 44 mm sensor. And you also need good lenses, and the Fuji GF lenses are world class.
I'd sure love to see Norway but since I can't visit I'm going to have to request you take your new toy and shot up the country for us so we can enjoy your it through your eyes.
I'll see what I can do
In the meantime, here's the view from one of the bedrooms. The lake in the background is called Tinnsjøen, and is one of the deepest lakes in Europe, 460 meters. Which means that the bottom is 270 meters below sea level.
Look at the excitement on his face. 
He looks like a youngster on his way to the ice-cream parlour by way of McDonalds.
jane-e​ Thanks for your thoughts re Billy. He was a dear wee thing, and I really loved him. After the vet had prodded his tummy and said it was not looking good, he wriggled away and climbed up on me and clung on with his head in my face. I am not embarrassed to say that I lost it at that point. Ruby is timid and shy, and we have several gangs of tradespeople coming and going for the next few months, so probably not a good time to be getting a kitten.
Can I see you for a few tips on keeping these guys in the house when I get the all clear? It would be a shame to have your expert knowledge go untapped.
We saw a Jackson Galaxy episode last night which featured a Savannah cat named Zeus. Savannahs are a domestic/Serval cross, and a bit of a handful — especially in a small apartment as was the case with the Jackson Galaxy cat. It made me think of John's Serval, and this comment.
John T Smith wrote
She was also not always that dainty... a small cat will walk around things... she kept to HER path and anything in her way moved, such as being knocked off a shelf
There's a bit of that behaviour in this clip from the show
But what a beautiful cat it is. It moves like a leopard, and is definitely on the large side for a domestic cat. We empathised with the damage Zeus did to the apartment door. Our Ruby has wrecked our front door by jumping up to let himself in — he just makes a terrible howl when he wants to be let out, and if that does not work, he attacks the lounge curtains which drives my Chris mad LOL.
You can see that he has completely destroyed the moulding at the bottom of the panel in the shot below. The handle lends itself to feline acrobatics — how on earth do they work out that jumping up to that handle will open the door? Zeus made the same connection, which suggests that cats are not so far behind dogs when it comes to intelligence. They are just too aloof to do tricks for their human masters slaves.
Getting back to our front door, there has been more than one occasion when I have gone to bed and forgotten to lock it, and woken the next morning to find it wide open! Burglars would need to be up bright and early to make use of it, because if Ruby is in with the run of the house, he will be bouncing on my head demanding to be fed at the very first crack of dawn.
Our new windows and doors are going to be fitted starting this coming Monday, and we had to put a lot of thought into making the entrance door Ruby proof with a round door knob and no horizontal components to hang from. The round knob did not stop Zeus though. I was thinking about one of those cat scaring gizmos that uses a passive infra-red switch to trigger a quick squirt of water, but I don't think they can differentiate between cats and postman, and that wouldn't go down well.
This is _so_ true to life
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