It started as a text message from an unknown number: “Hi. I saw a cat yesterday that might fit Stormy’s description. . . “ My heart skipped a beat. “. . .There was a collar and a red hanging tag.” I replied immediately.

It turned out the texter was an acquaintance I knew who lived on Valentine Road, up on Pleasant Ridge. I might have been skeptical, given how far that is from my home in town (almost 4 miles!), if I hadn’t talked to a neighbor on my street whose own cat had gone missing and had been found on Pleasant Ridge three weeks later.

When we talked I was pretty sure the cat they saw was Stormy. They graciously agreed to let me put out a live trap and even helped me set it up.

I put his favorite dry and wet food in, laid one of my recently worn shirts on it, which would have my scent, and waited. It was hard not to check in, but I knew they would call me if anything happened. Twenty-four hours passed.

Silence.

Two agonizing days after that text message a friend offered to walk Valentine Road with me and help me hang more posters. We got up early and walked the road, shaking a container of treats and talking loud enough that if he were around, he could hear me. We stopped by and checked the trap – the food was gone. Significantly, to me, the dry food was completely gone. That’s Stormy’s favorite. The trap had not tripped, though, because the bowls were too close to the plate that would trip it, so we refilled the bowls and reset the trap. We finished our walk and set about putting up more posters in the vicinity.

.As we circled back after hanging posters I saw a guy working to remove some debris from the end of his driveway. He was next door to the house where I set the trap, so I stopped and got out to show him a flyer with a picture of Stormy. He took one look and casually said “Oh yeah, he’s been hanging around my bbq for the past couple of days.”

To say I was excited would be an understatement. I asked if he was sure. “Yes, yes, that’s him. He looks interested but wouldn’t let me pet him.” I started to give him some treats to lure him then he said, “You can go up there and look.”

We drove up the long driveway through dense woods and parked by the BBQ he had mentioned. For about 10 minutes we called and rattled treats. Then we waited. In moments, my friend Eve spotted a little gray tabby come out from a barn and walk toward the driveway. He sat down and howled. I knew immediately it was Stormy.

Eve got in the car to wait so nothing would distract him. He talked and I talked, but he was scared and skittish. It took a lot of coaxing and a lot of treats to lure him close enough for me to get him. I touched him once and he leapt away. I stayed put and kept at it.

Some forty-five minutes later I had Stormy in my arms and was headed home. He is skinny but otherwise uninjured. Once I brought him into the house he was all purrs and cuddles. He hasn’t left my side. And I’m not letting him out of my sight for the time being. As my friend said, I found him on the bridge on a stormy night, and we were reunited on Valentine Road. What could be sweeter?

SIDEBAR: How to look for a lost cat

I followed the advice of professional pet rescuers in my search for Stormy. Here’s what they say.

First, understand that only 3% of lost cats are killed by predators, so don’t let people scare you into thinking your pet has been killed by a coyote or owl. Unless there’s proof, assume the cat is alive.

Some 75-85% of lost cats are found, usually within 21 days.

Most cats are within five to seven houses of home and often they are hiding. If they are in hiding, they will be quiet. Despite what seems logical, if a cat is in hiding it is unlikely to come to you if you call its name. Due to the fear factor, pros say it’s much more effective to simply walk around your neighborhood talking in your normal voice because calling their name might make them feel like they are targeted and cause them to hunker down and hide more. Dusk and dawn are good times because that’s when cats tend to be out.

Post signs everywhere. Knock on doors and hand out flyers. Pros say many people may see your pet but may not call even if they see a sign. It’s much better to talk to people in person.

Ask people to let you look in outbuildings or other hiding places.

Post in all social media lost pet communities.

Do not give up!

That last point is really important. I refused to quit looking for Stormy and this entire town helped me. I was excessively vocal about his loss. I posted signs everywhere. I knocked on dozens of doors. I even wore a sign on my back during the tulip parade. I reposted to lost pets social media groups routinely. I walked the streets of town late at night and early in the morning.

So many people who don’t know me have let me know on social media that they were looking everywhere. I got many, many tips. People were gracious and sympathetic when I knocked on their doors. And honestly, I felt the support. I can’t thank everyone enough for their encouragement.

On a slightly overcast but otherwise calm Saturday, a handful of volunteers from Skagit Audubon gathered at low tide on the Ship Harbor beach next to the Anacortes Ferry Terminal to pull down and clean the 30 purple martin houses posted on empty pilings from a long-gone cannery.

Stan Kostka, a carpenter by trade, built and installed the houses some 30 years ago. Kostka, who hails originally from Pennsylvania, is somewhat obsessed with purple martins (Progne subis) and set out to make their annual migration, when they pass through here from the east coast of Brazil, easier and more accommodating for breeding.

He put up houses on Camano Island — the ones at English Boom are still there — Anacortes and Cornet Bay. He used to band the birds as well and discovered some returned to the same site, even the same house, year after year.

Kostka, who lives in Arlington on eight acres with wife Lynn Schmidt, was inspired by his brother, who had purple martin houses back in Pennsylvania.

On the East Coast of the U.S., Kostka says, most martins live in artificial houses. On the West Coast, he estimates some 15% still nest in natural cavities, but ongoing development is rapidly destroying that habitat, so artificial houses are becoming more and more important. (To learn more about east coast purple martins, you can view the film made about purple martins by my friend Zach Steinhauser. To read about and watch a video on purple martins in Texas, check out my friend Heather Valey’s story here. )

Many purple martin houses in the Puget Sound are fixed on creosote pilings, but there is a state mandate to remove all creosote pilings from the Sound. The project is moving slowly; if the effort ever gains momentum, the future of purple martins may be in jeopardy. (Read a more detailed story about the purple martins around Puget Sound here. Follow my friend, writer Becca Dzombak for excellent articles about science and more.)

Kostka said he was told 30 years ago the pilings were going to be removed in short order. That hasn’t happened, so far.

If you are observant, you might have seen similar bird “condos” at many seashore areas along the West Coast and up into Canada. Although they don’t have to live by water, it is definitely preferred territory for purple martins.

“It’s remarkable to think these birds are born here, migrate all the way to Brazil, and return to this same place, where they were born,” Kostka said.

Kostka built the houses to rest atop the abandoned pilings and made them retrievable with a long stick. Every year, volunteers from Skagit Audubon show up to clean and prepare the houses for a new year of fledglings.

The mud is sticky, and it takes some careful balance to walk through it to the piling for each house. Volunteers wear rubber gloves and some wear masks because bird debris can have contaminants.

Each house is lifted from its hook, then lowered for volunteers to remove the front panel, clean out debris, and add some fresh nesting material to the bottom as a “start” for a nest

.

If they find eggs or a dead bird, Kostka examines the find before the house is closed up and put back up on its high hook.

It’s not an easy chore, but it is a meaningful one to the people who show up, year after year, to make sure these birds have places to nest.

The same ritual happens at other Purple Martin colonies around the Sound. Kostka attends many of them.

Six purple martins have already arrived at Anacortes, but they are weeks away from choosing their mates and settling on a nest, Kostka noted, so cleaning the houses even though they are present is not an issue. Indeed, the martins circle and settle while the cleaning takes place, carefully observing the activity.

No one knows how many purple martins migrate to Washington state. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) estimates there are 600 breeding pairs, but that’s a guess at best as no formal survey has been done.

But that’s about to change.

This year the Washington Purple Martin Working Group and the WDFW are coordinating a census, and the WDFW will provide an online map showing known purple martin nest locations. Having a baseline number will help future observers understand how the population is doing in the state.

Asked why people should care about purple martins, Kostko said “the same reason they should care about anything in nature.”

To volunteer to be a purple martin observer, email Kelly McAllister at mcallisters4@comcast.net. McAllister is the administrator of the 2026 Washington State Purple Martin Census Project.

When I found Stormy I immediately picked him up and took him to my car, where I held him close and warmed him up. I didn’t want another cat and I needed to take photos, but he was a helpless, desperate creature. Since that night he has wreaked joyful havoc in our lives and the lives of my calmer, more settled, older cats. Until last week.

I had left town for a few days and when I returned on Monday Stormy was nowhere to be found. My husband last saw him on Sunday.

I know there are many people who will shrug their shoulders and say that’s what you get for letting your cat go outdoors, but Stormy was a wild and social animal. He was destructive in crazy and annoying ways – but in ways only a cat can make you laugh. He was always looking for someone to play with him and complained if he got no takers.

He bit holes in my lampshades. He never found a sink he didn’t want to roll around in and if there was water in it he enjoyed slapping at the water then pouncing until everything around it was wet and covered in paw prints. My pictures always hung crooked because he would knock them sideways. If I wasn’t careful, I would find my socks stashed around the house, holes chewed in them. He never hunted anything larger than a daddy long legs that I saw. If he did, he was never successful at catching anything. He chased my little female cat Phoebe around the house. She has been sniffing his favorite spots since he disappeared. He brazenly challenged my large Norwegian forest cat, Meeko, who reluctantly played with him until he got annoyed enough to swat him away.

He adored the neighbor cat Ebony and demanded to be let out when Ebony was around. He would bound out immediately and pounce on Ebony in delight. The two would play for hours, sometimes dashing through our house, cleaning out the scraps in the food bowls, then racing back outside. On Tuesday, when Stormy had still not appeared, Ebony came over and sat in one of Stormy’s spots for hours, waiting.

I posted online about Stormy, knowing statistically when cats go wandering they return more often than not. According to the Missing Animal Response Network, 15% of cat owners lose their pet within five years. Seventy-four to 85 percent of lost cats are recovered. Most lost cats are found alive within seven days, often within a five-house radius of their home.

So many people reached out and offered to help. I started putting out flyers and posters and knocking on doors. People called and texted they thought they had seen him, but in every case there was a different tabby cat that was not Stormy.

I wandered the streets calling his name, rattling a container of his favorite treats. And then two precious little girls showed up. Annabelle and Lily were going to help me look. Unbeknownst to me, they stayed out in the rain all day, handing out little flyers they had printed and earnestly calling his name. They had bought treats to lure him out of hiding and at the end of the day they came by and gave me those treats in case he came home. I was so touched. I want to thank them for their efforts. I called them my Stormy Troopers. They reached people I hadn’t gotten to yet

Other friends in town looked and called. The concern and support has been palpable. Many people have followed Stormy’s story since I found him on the bridge and felt he was partly their cat too. The support has been a remarkable thing. Although Stormy has not come home, I know the heart of this small town and I deeply appreciate it. Cats are remarkable creatures. They sometimes return home months after disappearing. I’m not optimistic at this point, but stranger things have happened – like finding a tiny kitten on top of a bridge on a rainy night.

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