The most photographed cat in the Swartland

We have had quite a few cats in our time, but none quite like the feral named Fitz. With the walk of a leopard and the markings to rival a tiger, he doubtless has delusions of grandeur, and every cat lover cannot but marvel at both his attitude and his beauty. This of course he considers his due, but if they are drawn to stroke his delectable fluffy white belly or tickle his fine ears, they instantly wish they hadn’t. A paw comes out quick as lightning to thwap the admirer. He is playing, but it matters not. He is lethal and can carve bloody lines on your hand in seconds. At night should you venture out of bed to pee in the dark, he will spring out at you, wrap his paws around your ankle and rake some fine markings on you. Hence he has been renamed – as is wont to happen with cats - Osama ben kitty.  Or for short `The Terrorist’.  

Born of lineage comprising African wild cat mixed over the decades with the domestic cat, the Terrorist was found alone in the hollow of a tree one Christmas, and brought down to the house. His mother might have been out hunting, his sibs long dead, but his fate was now sealed. His eyes were barely open so he was bottle fed, and the fact that there was a bevy of small girls visiting who swaddled him like an infant, we think accounts at least in part, for his refusal to be handled.



Photo by Jon Riorden



As he grew he revealed the talents with which genetic selection has endowed him.  He can for example fly up and down a 150 year oak in minutes, and his reflexes are so good he can get the best of any rodent (including the fearsome mole rat), not to mention whisking the food off your dinner plate before you even notice. He jumps to a formidable height, drinks milk from a jug using his paw as a spoon, and is afraid of no one - whether human, canine, or equine.

Terri Broll

But for all his prowess, and this is the contradiction of it all, Fitz is undoubtedly a family cat. Unlike our other cat Bounce, who prowls the farm, Fitz is always close to us, preferring the mohair bed rug to the straw of an outhouse, and our company to being alone. He trots around with us when we show guests the farm, sits in on workshops and retreats, participates in wedding ceremonies, and hikes with us to the very top of the mountain.

And so it is no small wonder that he catches the eye of anyone with a camera or pen - which means he has been drawn by artists, and photographed by countless professional photographers, who just cannot resist.

Pics of Osama drawn or photographed by some of his many admirers.