"Cats Of Symi" Top 5 Page for this destination Symi Travelogue by steventilly

This black stray hung around near our apartments. I named her "Queenie" for no good reason other than she needed a name. She was a real scruff with a lot of fur missing from her neck and an old "seen it all" face. She was really lovely and made the same kind of noises as our Charley.
She had 6 kittens with her and we fed the whole clan every day with a packet of ham (my vegetarianism doesn't stretch that far). I even fed Queenie by hand and she was really gentle at taking the ham from your hand.

Queenie and kittens

Here she is with three of the kittens. The kittens were ever so playful and great fun to watch.

I became quite a trusted friend by the end of the week and the kittens used to love to lie around my feet while mum sat looking on.

Queenie's Kitten

A lot of Queenie's kittens had pink noses. It's quite common for pink nosed (and eared) cats to get them burned in the sun. They should really be wearing factor 25 sunscreen, but that's not a very practical option. The constant sunburn can lead to cancers, which is a real shame for thes ecats. This little one had a scabby sunburned nose, hopefully it will heal and not amount to anything more.

Queenie's Kitten

Here's another of the kittens, relaxing on one of the chairs. She's also got a sunburned, scabby nose :-(

Tiger

Tiger was a friend of Queenie's. It would come up to her, they'd rub noses and then all get along quite nicely.
Another cat that came along once was obviously not a friend as all the kittens started making low grumbling noises that sounded more like lions than cats. Eventually one of the kittens faced off the interloper, which was very brave of him (I assume it was a him - such bravery will make him the Alpha Male one day I'm sure)

Sphinx

Sphinx was the little ginger cat that lived near one of our favourite tavernas. I'm not sure how many kittens she had as they seemed a bit timid and were never all there at once. The most we saw at once was three, but they generall kept coming and going and only mum hung around the whole time. We fed her on bits of saganaki cheese (the only thing we ate that was suitable). She seemed content with that until some other diners started having fish/meat and then she decided she'd had enough of cheese.