A bobcat's prey escapes

Today, I'd like to share some footage of a bobcat. My trail cams record bobcats almost daily. They simply march past the cams without pausing or doing anything extraordinary. For a few years in a row, we had bobcat kittens in the area, and they were FUN to watch. However, I haven't seen signs of kittens recently.

In fact, this is one of the more interesting series of photos of a bobcat that I captured this year because he stopped to mark the area in front of the camera before departing.

Thus, you might guess how surprised I was to find fairly long footage of a bobcat on a faraway trail cam that I hadn't checked in a while.

At first, I was a bit horrified by the footage. It showed a bobcat with an apparently dead chipmunk in its jaws. Then, the bobcat put the chipmunk on the ground, and the chipmunk ran away, causing the bobcat to leap to catch him. This was repeated a number of times, perhaps somewhat like a domestic cat playing with its prey. Each time the bobcat re-captured the chipmunk, it played dead again.

I was a bit upset by the footage because it seemed like the bobcat was prolonging the terror of the chipmunk.

But wait! In the end, the bobcat's behavior let the chipmunk escape!

Watch the end of the video very closely. The bobcat had walked into a bush with the chipmunk and was not visible to the camera. The bush started shaking as the bobcat moved, and then the chipmunk came sprinting out of the bush toward the camera. The bobcat did not chase it! I bet that the bobcat didn't see which way the chipmunk went.

So the chipmunk won this round, surviving to live another day.

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.