Getting a Cat to Say Cheese!

Borrego Springs is absolutely gorgeous today. It is 71 degrees with just a whisper of a breeze and my Anna’s hummingbird is in full throttle dive display. Callie and I are hanging out in the olive trees listening to the bird produce the beautiful bell like sound at the end of the dive. If you have read any of my previous posts, you will know that Callie loves to climb the olive trees. The bark is perfect for sharpening her claws and the branches scale up at a decent ascent so that she can climb fairly high. The hummingbirds are up there too, and I believe that hunting down those pesky little birds was the start of her love affair with the trees. She hasn’t been able to catch a bird yet, but that doesn’t stop her from having a good time. There are three trees in the backyard and the one closest to the feeder is her favorite. 

I had the brainstorm of doing selfies with Callie in the tree while she was climbing, and kept laughing at her annoyance with me for getting in the way of her descent. This is not our usual routine and she was just about ready to tell me to get lost. You can tell she is annoyed by the angle of her ears and she flicks her tail back and forth. She is much too polite to be rude though, and kept hoping I would quit so that she could continue to play. I fired off a few good photographs and then let her do her thing. She actually gets tired of being photographed and would much rather I actively play with her. Callie loves it when I wiggle a small twig on either side of the branch so that she can pretend she is catching a hummingbird. So aiming the camera at her and saying “cheese,” wasn’t cutting it for her. You can’t demand that a cat obey you. It just doesn’t work. They have minds of their own, and will only do what it is they want to do. There isn’t one shot of her saying cheese that I can see, but I still think I won this round…. I may not have succeeded in getting her to smile and say cheese, but I did get her to stop long enough so that I could take our photograph together. That is a win- win for me!  All has been forgiven and now she is ready for a nap…….