A bobcat mother and kitten

I found a tremendous surprise on my wildlife camera that's set up on our property today.

First, let me explain why the surprise made me so happy. Some of you know that I've been following the progress of a mother bobcat and her kitten for months. First, I noticed an adult bobcat hunting a very small area with great intensity. The bobcat never seemed to eat her prey where she killed it. Rather, she always carried it toward an epicenter, which I now think was the kitten's early den.

Then, from early August through mid-September, I captured photos of a bobcat mother and kitten traveling together.

After mid-September, my wildlife cameras were capturing photos of them separately and never together. I think the photo below was of the kitten. But, where was the mother?

This one looked so big and muscular that I believed that she was the mother. But where was the kitten?

Based on the fact that my friend saw two adult bobcats traveling together in our territory in mid-March (probably a mating pair), I figured that their kittens were born in mid-May or so. The kittens mostly stay in dens for the first couple of months which roughly fits with the fact that my first photos of the kitten were in early August.

So, it didn't make sense to me that the mother and kitten no longer seemed to be together if the kitten was only 5 months old or so. Usually, the kitten gets at least six months with the mother bobcat.

Well, last night, the pair visited our land and stayed in front of a camera for a few minutes! It's a rudimentary camera that takes incandescent flash photos every 30 seconds if there's motion in front of it. The first one looks like nothing until you notice the bobcat leg disappearing in between the boulders. It's in the crack just to the left of the biggest boulder.

The next photo made me laugh with delight!

The only part that I didn't like about the photo above was how much the flash must have blinded the pair, based on their bright eyes. That's why I don't use my incandescent flash cameras anywhere except for close to my house, where I think that the animals are already very wary. Out in the forest far from our house, I use infrared cameras which emit a soft red glow as the "flash" for night photos. The disadvantage is that the photos are in shades of gray and sometimes blurry but the flash doesn't blind the animals.

Finally, the camera caught the hind end of the kitten as he/she departed. Look at the size of those paws! That kitten needs to grow fast to catch up with his/her paws.

This has turned out to be a fortuitous location for my camera. I chose it based on signs that rabbits lived in the boulders - and rabbits attract predators. Then, recently, a coyote walked away from the boulders with a rabbit in his jaws. I nearly moved the camera, thinking that the attraction for predators was gone. However, soon after that, another rabbit showed up on the camera.

So, I lucked out! Now we know that the mother and kitten bobcat are doing great and are still traveling together, at least sometimes.

While I was searching through my archives of bobcat photos, I came across this funny photo that one of my wildlife cameras took of me. It was labeled as "tracking a mountain lion". I remember the day - there were patches of snow in shaded spots, and I'd found a fresh mountain lion track in one of them. I grabbed K and tried to figure out which way the lion had gone. I look a bit intense, don't you think? I laughed when I saw the photo today.

Today has been another glorious autumn day here on the Front Range of Colorado. It's not winter yet, and we're taking full advantage of the warmth and sunshine. We mountain biked earlier and plan to hike this afternoon/evening. Ah, the joy of our beautiful surroundings.