Odd couples exist everywhere…
It might be surprising that a cat and a bird could be friends since birds are prey for cats. Remember Tweety Bird and Sylvester from The Bugs Bunny Hour? (American animated series). Granny was always protecting Tweety from the Bad Ol’ Puddy Tat.
The Budgie and cat have formed an unusual attachment to each other but they are not alone in feeling love for one another.
In the wild, animals will form bonds with animals of other species especially when they have been abandoned by their mothers or by the pack. But even domesticated animals of different species can tolerate each other.
For example, cats and dogs can live together in the same household.
Unusual friendships between species have been documented.
There are many other examples of unexpected friendships such as between a dog and a duck, a dog and an elephant, a group of otters and a family of orangutans…
Obviously, the cat in my painting has either lost interest in pouncing and capturing his feathered friend or perhaps they have been trained somehow to tolerate each other’s close proximity.
An Odd Couple: the details of this painting.
A whimsical treatment of a friendship between a cat and a bird painted using Golden Fluid acrylics and Liquitex heavy body acrylics. Background is stenciled. I love using unusual colours in my pet portraits and although the cat is blue, I kept the bird in its original colours.
Do you have an example in your own home of an unusual interspecies couple? I would love to hear about it. All comments are screened before being published.
With thanks to Erik-Jan Leusink at unsplash for the reference photo of the cat and Bianca Ackerman for reference photo of the bird.
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They really look like friends here. Love the colors in the painting and your use of a stencil in the background.
Thank you Catherine.
Dear Louise, thank you so much for your post to odd couples. Especially I love cat and budgie. That both are friends is unbelievable. All the more it’s beautiful that we can admire this miracle. All the best for you dear Louise!!!!
Thank you so much dear friend for your kind words.
That cat looks so cuddly, and the fact that the bird is quite comfortable sitting with the feline is not unusual as you have commented. One of our granddaughters has a rescue cat that barely tolerates humans but there is also a Cavalier King Charles in the house as well, she is so small I think that the cat thinks it is an unusual cat lol…. So from a distance they are friends.
They must be cute together Sally. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!