But up on the hill a hawk might easily zoom in sideways from the air circuit where it had been lying to choose its prey–one of our chickens. The sky was as it had been: a tall blue silent space with its scattered groups of wheeling birds. After a half minute, or twenty, the bird plummeted straight on to the tiny creature it had chosen then up and away it went in a wide steady beat of wings, leaving behind an eddy of red dust and a hot rank smell. Under the narrow bulletlike body between great poised wings the claws were held ready. You would choose one, straight overhead perhaps perhaps for a moment fancy an exchanged glance eye to eye: the cold staring eye of the bird into coldly curious human eye. Hundreds of feet up, a dozen birds circled, all eyeing the field for small movement of mouse, birds, or mole. Legs, too pale against reddish-brown soil in spite of sunburn, had to be scattered with earth, or dug into it. Down in the fields, you could lie very still in a furrow, preferably where the plough had bitten deep as it turned, under a screen of grass and leaves. You’d look down on sun-glistening brown and black wings, a six-foot spread of them, tilting as the bird banked on a curve.

The house being on a hill, hawks, eagles, birds of prey that lay spiralling on air currents over the bush were often at eye level, sometimes below it.

No other writer conveys so truthfully the real interdependence of humans and cats or convinces us with such stunning recognition of the reasons why cats really matter. And she tells the story of herself in relation to cats: the way animals affect her and she them, and the communication that grows possible between them-a language of gesture and mood and desire as eloquent as the spoken word. She tells their stories-their exploits, rivalries, terrors, affections, ancient gestures, and learned behaviors-with vivid simplicity.

On Cats is a celebrated classic, a memoir in which we meet the cats that have slunk and bullied and charmed their way into Doris Lessing's life. Her fascination with the handsome, domesticated creatures that have shared her flats and her life in London remained undiminished, and grew into real love with the awkwardly lovable El Magnifico, the last cat to share her home. Doris Lessing's love affair with cats began at a young age, when she became intrigued with the semiferal creatures on the African farm where she grew up.

On Cats by Doris Lessing