I am going to diverge a bit with this topic.  I am going to talk a little about kitty motherhood.  How do felines raise their young?  I came across two kitties and their mom on a small backstreet across from the local Buddhist temple.  Temples are one of the places that stray kitties hang out in, because most temples have graveyards attached to them.  The strays can find some shelter, food, and water there.  I am not sure if these kitties had owners or they had just wandered over from the temple.

As soon as I squatted down to frame up my picture, one of the kitties came right up to my lens.  It came so close that the kitty came out slightly blurred in the image.  The momma cat, who was keeping a motherly eye on her young, let out a big meow.  Just to let the kitty know not to get to close, or to let the kitty know that big momma is watching.

Mother kitties relinquish their control over their little ones once the little ones are able to wander around and explore some.  The mother will continue to supplement their diet with breast milk for as long as she can, but the babies have to start finding food on their own.

This is so different that a human child.  A human child remains so helpless for the first couple years of their life.  And in many ways they are still rather helpless even when they grow up a bit.  The kitties just get thrown into the world.  For these little strays the survival instinct overrides and they will either grow strong and survive or they will perish.

I respect motherhood in all its shapes and forms.  I hope these little ones make it and can survive in the big bad world of Chiba.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 9:26 am and is filed under Photography Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.