We watched a new Cat-related documentary this weekend, called The Cats Of Claw Hill. We were very excited to watch it when we heard about it, as cat programmes are pretty rare on UK TV. It’s on again Saturday at 4:00 and 4:30 June 19th and 26th. Cats of Claw Hill
Oh, and one other thing – please leave a comment below and let me know what YOU thought of the programme?
(sorry about the quality of the stills, I had to photograph my TV!)
It was an unusual format, as the TV writeup suggests a documentary format, but it was actully shown from a Cat’s eye point of view. The narrator was aparently a cat herself, and spoke about human beans as “two leggers”. It was kind of light hearted, which suited the cat’s commentary, but I’m unsure if that was a good thing. Maybe I’m just too mature, but I’d have preferred a serious cat behaviourist commenting rather than a voiceover pretending to be a cat, as it forced the program to be light, and avoid any REAL insight into the behaviour.
On a positive note, the footage they have is incredible! They have lots of footage from the cat’s low-down position, and an incredible variety of behaviour filmed, my favourite (so far) being one cat coming round a corner, and spotting another more dominant cat suddenly as he got there. He then sloped off, with his tail low before the other cat chased him away.
I noticed that most of the cats have some sort of tape on their collars, and I guess they were fitted with the Loc8or cat tracking device? That would explain how they managed to get such great footage!
Overall, We will certainly watch it again, as it captures some fantastic behaviour and amazing photography, and maybe we’ll warm to the voiceover style as time goes by…
