Cat Among the Pigeons: A Riotous Assembly of Unrespectable African Creatures

In an irreverent but loving treatise on the creatures of South Africa and beyond, David Muirhead features eccentric animal behaviors in his native home. Mixing folklore and legend with a heavy dose of science, Muirhead leaves no wart unexamined in these tales of unrespectable animals. A book for those delighted to discover what “pronking” means, or that for pythons, swallowing a porcupine whole is the easy part; it's afterwards when the anxiety really starts.

Cat Among the Pigeons allows us to laugh our way to a reconnection with the creatures we co-evolved with, highlighting their importance to our collective past and precarious futures. A reminder in our increasingly urban world that the strange and fantastical still roam, crawl, wiggle, swim and soar through the terrestrial and aquatic world, ready to delight and surprise us.

David Muirhead was born and raised in East Africa and his fascination and love for African wildlife began at an early age. He was educated at schools in Uganda, Kenya and the UK, and attended St Andrews University in Scotland, graduating with a degree in Philosophy. His career has spanned finance, trade development, economic research, publishing and journalism, and he has worked all over Africa, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. He is currently a freelance journalist and writes for magazines, notably Wildside, a South African ecotourism and nature conservation magazine which he founded in 1999 in partnership with KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation (now KZN Wildlife). He has authored several books, including The Curious Case of the Imaginary Tourist, a collection of satirical and humorous short stories which drew acclaim from the British press, and a novel, The Clamour King, published in London. Random House's Struik Nature imprint published his two anthologies of riotous, irrespectable essays on animals, which have been combined into one volume for North America. He now lives near Cape Town and is married with two children and two grandchildren. His daughter and her family live in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Patricia de Villiers is an artist, illustrator and designer. She has been active as a cultural worker since the early 1970s contributing to various community organisations including the Community Arts Project in the 1980s.

Brian J. Olsen, Ph.D., is an ornithologist. He is an Associate Professor of Biology & Ecology; Chair of the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, & Conservation Biology; and Director of the Ecology & Environmental Sciences Program at the University of Maine in Orono.