Winter's Return and Our Tough Wild Cats

We've had the return of winter after a major melt over last weekend. Yesterday, it snowed feathery light flakes all over our world. Shyla and I were out snow biking when the snow fell the hardest.

This morning dawned very cold but clear and still. As we started our morning fat bike ride, I felt as if we were riding out into a winter painting, with a bluebird sky and snow covering every pine bough and boulder.

It was so cold that my fingers hurt almost instantly when I tried to use my camera. Shyla just kept running around with frost forming on her whiskers and her paws kicking up the powdery snow.

 When it warmed a tiny bit, she sampled the snow cones.

The well-below freezing temperatures and new snow have made the trails much harder to navigate on a snow bike or on foot. So, I'm very glad that I seized that day last weekend to visit some faraway trail cameras that had been snowed in for almost 6 weeks.

Over the 6 weeks of human absence, the animal activity was subdued, mainly due to deep snow. But, the rabbits and the cats endured the snow and continued using the area. At one camera, a mountain lion walked past, sinking into the snow with each paw. I believe this is the same mountain lion whose photos I showed you from another (less snowy) site a few days ago.

Despite the snow, she took long determined steps. I think that she is the mother mountain lion who we followed last summer and autumn. Her kitten was almost as big as her when we last saw him so I won't be surprised if he has now struck out on his own.

Then, two nights later, a bobcat followed, literally in her footsteps. The big indents in the snow are where the mountain lion put down her paws two nights earlier.

But, this comparatively tiny cat took about twice as many steps to pass the trail camera as the mountain lion.

If you look at the photos closely, you can see that this bobcat made sure to use each of the lion's pawprints, since they were packed down by the lion's weight. However, the bobcat had to take extra steps in between the lion's tracks because his legs are so much shorter.

I find it so fascinating to get these glimpses into what goes on in our big forest when humans are not around. I think it'll be a little while before I can visit those cameras again so it'll be interesting to see the wildlife traffic over the coming weeks/months.

I am awed by these animals and their ability to survive such harsh conditions. The area where these photos were taken is usually substantially colder (5-10°F colder) than anyplace else in our neck of the woods. Yet, the cats, with their thick coats, still patrol the area in the depth of winter.