As I noted a couple of months ago, the classic Backyard Bowl has been discontinued in favor of daily offerings to the various Gods of Feral Critters, over on the other side of the house, near the catio.

However, we* do maintain the water bowl in its historical location, and it continues to get visitors.

* Although I say “we”, 95% or more of the actual maintenance is done by Maggie.

Meet Marbles.

Named, as local tradition has it, by appearance. He*’s a marble tabby, so the name is pretty much inevitable.

* Conjecturally. We haven’t gotten a good look at putatively his hindquarters.

He’s not as consistent in his visits as G’aw; sometimes weeks will go by without a sighting, but we’re always happy to see him. He’s very skittish when it comes to humans. Where G’aw will keep a cautious distance, but say “hello” and “can’t you fill that bowl any faster”, Marbles will vanish if he even thinks someone is looking at him.

Which is perfectly fine. Not everyone needs to be friendly–and to be blunt, it would be highly hypocritical of me to cast aspersions on someone for being a curmudgeonly anti-social grump.

That said, we do seem to be the only ones in the area who are pleased to see him. G’aw faces him down if they both show up at the same time.

And as for the other neighbors, well…did you notice the bird sitting on the fence? It did its best car alarm imitation the entire time Marbles was in the yard.