Well, let’s be honest, no.  These couple of pictures are not of a Wildcat but a common domestic cat.  This afternoon, I was out seeing if anything cropped up when I spotted this tabby moving quietly and stealthily on the opposite bank of the canal.  It was tracking several ducks.  I’m not much of a fan of pet cats; in part because I’m more of a dog person really but also because of how much damage they, as a truly effective predators, cause to our real wildlife.  Nevertheless, this one caught my eye because of the way it was showing how much of a hunter it is at heart.  So very much like the, much larger, wild cats we had spent hours watching in Africa recently.  I decided to get a bit of practice in and spend some minutes watching and photographing it along the bank.  I think these couple of pics are quite evocative; not at all your cuddly puss.  

In defence of the gratuitously misleading headline here, I would love to see and photograph the true Scottish Wildcat.  This is our only native cat of the British Isles.  (The Lynx is long since extinct in Britain - possibly since around 700AD and I’m not sure you can really count the sabre tooth tigers of the ice-age because we weren’t exactly ‘isles’ back then.)  Our wildcat is a bit bigger and chunkier than the domestic cat.  It’s markings are not that different to the tabby featured here and they do interbreed easily.  This is a real problem because the true wildcats are becoming hybridised with the domestics.  As a result, the true, purebred wildcats are becoming very rare (possibly only 100) as a result.  Lots of info here on the steps being taken to preserve our few remaining Wildcats.  

In respect of the Lynx, there are discussions taking place about reintroducing the Eurasian Lynx back into these isles.  How magnificent would that be to see (well perhaps ‘know’, because they are really difficult to see just about anywhere where they are found) Lynx back in our large northern forests.  Gets my vote.