Photo: Jigger on top of Osprey's dodger.

Jigger must be going crazy from lack of exercise, I thought, as I listened to him racing around the boat at 5:00 am. We’d had a hard trip up Johnstone Strait the day before, battling wind against current. Jigger had slept the whole time. Now we wanted to sleep and he was playing, or so I thought. He’d jump up on our bunk, then down again a few seconds later. Then he started to throw something around. I could hear him landing on the cabin floor with a thump as he chased whatever it was into the air. One of his catnip mice? Whatever it was, it made a strange whirring sound. Steve had the sleeping bag over his head and was trying to sleep. I did the same

Eventually the noise quieted and I went back to sleep. When I woke up at 6:30, Jigger was sleeping soundly at the foot of our bunk. I got up and went in the main cabin, then stopped in horror. In the middle of Osprey’s oriental carpet was a pile of feathers and a small black and brown bird head. I was surprised because I hadn’t thought of Jigger as a birder. He showed no interest in them at home, preferring to chase squirrels, although never catching them. Sometimes we found the occasional mouse or rat on the front doorstep, but that was it. I imagined him stalking the bird on Osprey’s deck, perhaps surprising the bird that hadn’t expected a cat out on the water. Had being confined to the boat, turned Jigger into a more accomplished hunter?

When Steve got up, he had another idea. “The bird must have flown in Jigger’s window,” he said. (We have an opening portlight that connects the quarter berth with the cockpit that we leave open for Jigger to come and go when we’re at anchor.)

“If so, he would have been fighting off an invader,” I replied, suddenly feeling better about Jigger’s catch.

But, of course, we’ll never know what really happened.