Update - First Glimpse, Mother of Pearl

Celia is being an excellent, loving and very protective mum. She is in her element with her five shell babies... Purring away, and doting over their every need.

The babies are thriving, and I hoped to be able to get some lovely photos to share. Celia however is having other ideas, letting no-one stick a lens at her or her babies (Pearl, Clem, Cal, Perry and Sully). She's blocking me by standing over them completely, padding and wanting fuss... or standing directly in front of the camera and pushing it away with her body.

She's happy for me to stroke and handle her precious ones... but she's just not happy with a foreign object intruding into her nesting box. She never actually shows any objective behaviour.. Not a growl in earshot. As usual Celia's behaviour is sweet as ever, and she manages to direct you to what she wants.

So you were not all disappointed, I had to go under cover. I managed to snap a few shots with my iPhone last night, paparazzi style. As you can imagine this is a far cry from my snazzy digital SLR, but in true reporter fashion... any pictures are better than no pictures, right?

I can also confirm that Cal is in fact a girl kitten, and so she is now Callie herein.

Announcement - 5 shells for the collection!

Our homebred girl Celia (Handale Seashell Collection), gave birth to 5 bonny babies on Friday evening! Mum and babies are doing fine.

I have been waiting sometime to use these pedigree names, reserved solely for Celias babies for obvious reasons.

All Celias litter are of course names of inhabitants of the sea that have shells. So officially this seashell collective will be known as:- Totallycoastal Oyster, Totallycoastal Periwinkle, Totallycoastal Mussel, Totallycoastal Scallop and finally Totallycoastal Clam.

You maybe wondering what call names will be. Well one will be obvious, and that's Perry (the short tailed boy). We've opted for Pearl, for the short tailed girl (Totallycoastal Oyster) who is most likely staying here.

That leaves us 3 names still to go, Clem (Totallycoastal Clam) will be for the second male.

The third baby needs to be a unisex name for now because this kitten as yet doesn't want to reveal themselves yet so (Totallycoastal Scallop) for now known as Cal. This will become Callie, for a girl, or Callum if this kittens male.

Finally the last boy of the litter, Totallycoastal Mussel was even harder naming, because we struggled with the syllables. Eventually we've opted for the last syllable only (-sul) and choose Sully short for Sullivan.

So there you have it the 5 shells:- Perry, Pearl, Clem, Cal and Sully. Photos as always will follow shortly.