Ebook: My Wilderness Wildcats

"Tomkies, who lives in the Scottish highlands wilderness with his amiable Alsatian Moobli, took in two baby wildcats for a while, and his precisionist report of their development will especially please more serious animal-book readers. From the start, Cleo and Patra demonstrated strong memory and scent powers and marked temperamental differences, resisting Tomkies' few friendly gestures but tolerating the unthreatening Moobli. Later an adult male named Sylvesturr was acquired, a London Zoo reject with a Jack Palance glare whom Tomkies admired for ""his cussed pre-historic magnificence""; alliances shifted with few negotiations and Sylvesturr settled in. Tomkies missed the cues but readers will pick up on the true attachments before the first litter surprises him, and they will remain involved as he responsibly gives the wildcats increasing independence and encourages survival skills before eventual release to the wilderness. An easily accessible account of a most inaccessible breed: Tomkies' eyewitness observations throw light on many suppositions about wildcats and the exotic incidentals (butter-fried honey fungus) add tone."

"During the years he spent in the Scottish wilderness, Tomkies acquired a series of Scottish wildcats, first two female kittens that were abandoned by their mother, then an adult male from a London zoo, and finally two kittens from a mating of one of the original kittens with the male. Throughout the book, Tomkies intermingles stories of his life in the wild and his cats with a broader discussion of the biology of the Scottish wildcat. Tomkies, a remarkably independent sort, clearly identifies with his charges and his work brings this rarest of felines to life and encourages Mittyesque escapes into the Scottish wilds. This book is recommended for those who like first-person stories of the wilderness, highly recommended for those interested in the wilds of Scotland and absolutely essentially for those interested in the Scottish wildcat."