Bobcat Tales

I have a tendency to take our abundant bobcats for granted. However, I love watching them, especially at this time of year.

I see two special things in the fall. One is that bobcats start marking like crazy. They love to rub their faces and bodies in the area of the base of a bear marking tree, probably due to the many scents that the bears leave behind there. I'm not sure why bobcat marking reaches a crescendo at this time of year.

A bobcat starting to mark

A bobcat looking up in the middle of marking

The second reason why bobcats are such fun to observe in the fall is that they bring out their kittens to areas where my trail cameras can capture footage of them. For the summer, the kittens spent most of their time in dens, with their mother nursing them and then progressing to bringing them prey to eat in the den. They switch dens frequently to avoid being discovered.

I was absolutely thrilled with some bobcat footage that I captured this summer. In the first sequence of the video below, a bobcat is determined to mark an area in the far left of the frame. A striped skunk is equally determined to chase the bobcat away. I laughed and laughed as I watched the chases!

The second clip is of a mother bobcat and her two kittens who are marking the ground and a rock at the base of a bear marking tree. I adore seeing bobcat kittens - they are so cute! And, I'm thrilled for this mother bobcat. After years of having only one bobcat emerge in the fall, this is her second year in a row of having two!!!

Enjoy the video either here or at Youtube.

Tiny the Black Bear - Marking and Mischief

There's so much going on at home that I'm going to step away from the desert trip for a moment to give you a bear update.

You may remember Tiny, the biggest male black bear I've ever seen, who rules our neck of the woods during mating season (usually around June). We caught our first glimpses of him on 5/25, when he trekked many miles marking every black bear "whammy" tree in the area. I have video cams at most of those trees so I got some fun footage plus some still photos.

He came back a few days later to discover that all his amorous messages had gone unanswered, except for a response from a bobcat who leaped onto a tree that Tiny had marked. Then, the bobcat rolled around at the foot of the tree, leaving his own scent mark.

It is fascinating to me that different species respond to each other's scent messages. I've learned from experience to go look when Shyla marks a certain spot. On more than one occasion, I've found that she had the audacity to pee over top of a mountain lion's scrape! I guess that it's good to listen to your dog if you want to know what's been happening in the forest around you.

When Tiny returned to the most important marking tree to discover that no sows had left replies and that a BOBCAT had answered his messages, he seemed to get mad. He attacked my camera, believe it or not! The camera endured the attack but Tiny left it pointed the wrong way after he finished sniffing and clawing it.

The compilation of these videos reinforces for me the fact that fascinating animal communication is happening in the forest around us, although we usually have no idea of what is being said. You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

I still haven't captured any trail cam footage of the sow and cubs who were in "my" den this winter. Very soon, I will go peek to see if they are still near the den. If they're not, I will bring home all the footage of mom and tiny cubs from the winter and spring.

Have a Beary Happy Tuesday!

A Feline Visitor

Yesterday evening, a gift walked into our clearing. I get to see bobcats a lot on my trail cameras but there's something so special about seeing them in person!

He was sitting next to a downed tree that many rabbits and rodents seem to call home.

I think he saw movement at the window as I was photographing because he kept looking over his shoulder. These photos are through the window - sorry about the little bit of distortion.

It was amazing how fast the area cleared out of all small animals. Our birdfeeder had been mobbed with hungry feathered friends, and it sat empty when this guy showed up!

There's an ongoing conversation in our area about whether people are seeing bobcats or lynx. This photo tells the truth. Look at the white under his tail tip. A lynx has a tail that is black all the way around the tip. This is a bobcat. I don't believe that lynx come down to our elevation.

And, just like that, he was gone. I absolutely adore living someplace where a bobcat can appear outside our window at any time!

Bobcat Family

You may remember that I followed a mother and her two bobcat kittens last summer. You can see the posts here, here, here, and here.

Usually, I see mother bobcats with their kittens for the last time sometime around February. It turned out that the mother bobcat and her two kittens were in front of my trail camera in late January!

Mom arrived.

She sniffed a bone that has laid in front of this camera for ages and always attracts the attention of bobcats. As she sniffed, one kitten arrived.

Mom and her kitten sniffed together. If you look to the left of them, you can see the other kitten approaching from the snowy background.

As soon as the other kitten arrived, mom walked away. You can see her on an animal path in the background.

The first kitten quickly followed while the lagging kitten lay down in front of the camera.

The lagging kitten rolled around and showed us his white spotted chest and belly. It's moments like this one that only trail cameras can capture. Most of us would never see such a sight with our own eyes.

After this fun photo, the kitten sprinted after his family, and I'm sure he caught up. By now, these kittens are at least 7 months old, and they will soon strike out on their own. For now, they travel "loosely" with their mother, meaning that they are usually in the same area as her but not necessarily right next to her.

In fact, in the days after the family visit, that same trail camera repeated photographed single bobcats, likely members of this family, who passed it by themselves. This is part of the pattern of the kittens gradually becoming more independent.

Getting trail camera photos of our wildlife really helps me through February which always feels like the longest month even though it's actually the shortest! I wish that we would get photos of the mother mountain lion and her two kittens who we followed last summer (posts are here and here). I suspect that they made a "big move" for the winter to an entirely different area. If they were still near here, I would probably know it. However, I do have a "snowed in" trail camera that I probably won't check until the big spring melt. Then, we'll know for sure if they've been in this area for the winter or not.

In the meantime, I'll dream of the next time I can pick up memory cards from our "den cams" that are monitoring the black bear in her den. I am so curious to find out there are noisy new cubs in the den with her. They would've been born in the second half of January!

To keep February happy, I'll keep playing with the ever-joyful Shyla!

If only I had Shyla's athletic capabilities, I'd be able to frolic in the snow in February, and then I'm sure it would seem too short to me!!

I hope that all of you are enjoying your Saturdays.

National Cat Day - My Trail Cam Cat Photos

I read that today is National Cat Day so I wanted to share some new bobcat mother and kitten photos plus some of my favorite wild cat photos from the past year. If you don't have much time, just look at the pictures - I tried to pick out the best ones!

Just the other early morning, the mother bobcat and her kittens passed a trail camera where they've never been before. The mother arrived first.

Here's a closeup of her. She is scent marking. That involves kicking backward once with each hind paw while urinating or defecating into the scrape marks. In this case, she urinated.

Just as she finished, her kittens arrived and dove for the spot that their mom had marked.

As Mom departed, she seemed to notice the trail camera and paused to look at it while her kittens lagged behind.

Then, mom moved along, and the kittens continued to roll in their mom's scent.

A few seconds later, one of the kittens sprinted after mom while the other remained behind.

Suddenly, the solo kitten realized that he'd been left behind. He looked up and sprinted away so fast that the camera couldn't record it!

That evening, mom headed out, past the same camera, to hunt for food for the family.

The location of the mother and kitten bobcats is exciting. It's in an area that I know extremely well, and I can even visualize where the mother might have stashed the kittens. We might get to see a lot of them in the coming days (but I won't go anywhere near the possible den site because it would disrupt the family).

In honor of National Cat Day, I thought I'd also share my favorite wild cat photos from the past year. The first one was of the same mother bobcat and her two kittens back in August. I think it's my favorite all-time bobcat photo taken by my trail cams.

For mountain lions, my cams have captured a lot of photos that I've liked over the past year. I've captured more photos of interactions between mother mountain lions and their kittens than ever before.

In this case, a mother lion and her kitten passed my trail camera. The kitten noticed it. This was the last photo before he pounced on it, and knocked it so it was pointing at the ground. He made me laugh when I looked at the photos later!

Also, about a year ago, the same mother mountain lion and her kitten played right in front of my trail camera.

Finally, mom got worried about something, and the play session ended.

This spring, a mountain lion family passed through our neck of the woods, and I was awed to see three long lithe tails in one photo. The mother mountain lion had done an amazing job of raising two kittens who looked close to the point of becoming independent.

Then, this year, we have been so lucky to get many glimpses of a mother mountain lion who has two young kittens in our area. Here is the mother...

And, it was a true treasure to get photos of her kittens. Here is my favorite (with mom's tail in the right of the photo):

I believe that kitten was less than 2 months old. The kittens have not appeared in front of the camera since that day. I'm not worried about them because the mother mountain lion has appeared going to and fro secluded areas frequently. No doubt, she's tending to her well-hidden kittens.

Last but not least, there's a "mountain lion spot" in a small clearing with a big old Ponderosa Pine in the middle of it. For the past 15 years, there have always been mountain lion "scrapes" (like the bobcat made in the first two photos of this post) and mountain lion scat around the tree. The first time I noticed all the signs of mountain lions there, I freaked out. I wasn't yet experienced with living with mountain lions, and I believed the sensational hype like what I'd read in the book "Beast in the Garden". In fact, I now believe that mountain lions watch me regularly, and they let me go about my business peaceably.

To make a long story short, I remembered the "mountain lion spot" when I got my first trail camera, and I put it there. Although there are sometimes long quiet periods, it has turned out to be a great place to get lion photos.

And here is the grand finale - my favorite mountain lion photo from my trail cams of all time.

Happy National Cat Day!

As the Bobcat World Turns

The bobcat family has been active recently. This is the mother bobcat, out on her own. She had probably stashed the kittens in a den.

At first, she looked like she was "all business", walking briskly past the camera.

Then, after she had passed the spot that most animals mark (at the base of the bear marking tree to her right), she started to act goofy.

Then, she got even more goofy, rolling over on her back like her kittens do.

As quickly as she'd arrived, she leaped to her feet and departed. When I've seen the seemingly stoic bobcats and mountain lions around here, it never occurred to me until now that they do let down their guard and goof around like this.

A couple of hours later, the mother bobcat walked past the same camera again. This time, she carried a mountain cottontail rabbit, that she had just killed. She was carrying it to the den for her kittens to eat.

 She seemed to sidestep past the spot where she'd acted so goofy just hours earlier.

Then, I had no more sightings of the family until ten days later.

One afternoon last week (3:30PM on 10/22), a pair of bobcat kittens came out of their den to check out the world. I love how dappled with spots their fur coats are by comparison to their mom's coat. These are trail camera photos zoomed in on the kittens.

You may remember that our last sighting of the bobcat kittens with their mom involved a skunk causing the family to scatter. After the skunk passed, one kitten didn't reappear, even though the mom and the remaining kitten remained in the area for hours. These photos tell me that both kittens are fine.

They also show us the kittens' first experience with snow. It snowed a few hours before these photos were taken. The snow melted very fast after it fell.

The two kittens were playful in front of the camera. I love seeing their bright white but spotted bellies! It's even a better view than we had of their mother's belly 10 days earlier.

I'm guessing that mom was nearby, keeping an eye on the two kittens but not joining in their play.

I'm so happy that our world still has places where the wildlife can relax and just be themselves. Our neck of the woods is notably still that way because there's so little human "traffic" on the trails.

That's why I work so hard at training our dogs, especially focusing on being able to recall them away from all animals.

I think it helps keep our dogs and the wildlife safe.  And, it's fun! I will write soon about the hit that our training has taken since my spine injury and how I'm trying to adapt.

But, for today, I'm mainly happy to see that the two bobcat kittens are both fine!

Life in the Forest - Bones, Dogs, Bears, and Bobcats

As you know, we spend lots of time in the forest with our dogs. It's a wild forest, with all sorts of wildlife, including predators. Consequently, we often find parts of prey near trails, where animals have left them after finishing all the meat. Elk legs are the most common find, and an elk leg creates a bothersome distraction every time we pass it with our dogs. So, we and other dog owners tend to hang elk legs in trees so that our dogs can't reach them.

Yes, even sweet Shyla will leave a "heel" to enjoy the company of an elk leg for a while. Don't be fooled by her serious expression!

Recently, Shyla noticed an elk leg that someone else had hung in a tree right next to a trail that we use regularly. In fact, Shyla was standing on her hind legs trying to reach the leg - a first for her. When I checked what she was up to, even I could smell the elk leg. It was very fresh.

So, I decided to try an experiment. I hung the stinky elk leg in a secluded clearing where I have trail cameras pointed at a tree.

Within hours, a bear was checking it out. You can barely see the elk leg about 1-2' above the bear's head. This bear was Dot, our youngish sow, and she couldn't reach the leg. That tells me that she's shorter than I am - so she's really not a big bear yet. If she'd wanted to, she could've climbed the tree but she gave up after unsuccessfully stretching to reach the elk leg.

Two days later, a bobcat showed up, very interested.

He sniffed the bone on the ground (this area sometimes seems like a huge bone yard).

Rapidly, his attention was on the elk leg in the tree, which is far fresher than the bone on the ground. He leaped up onto the tree trunk.

I was surprised to see him cling to the tree for an extended period while he checked out the elk leg.

Then he lowered himself to the ground and walked off.

His departure...

I was worried about having lured him into the tree and whether he'd hurt himself when he jumped down. My first tenet of watching wildlife is not to hurt them in any way! But then I saw another photo of him nearby, walking quickly and very nimbly. I think it was a routine leap for him.

Since then, I've placed a video trail camera pointed at the elk leg, hoping to get a better view of the bobcat actually leaping. Unfortunately, no animals have tried to investigate the elk leg since then.

Neither has Shyla. I'm glad for that. We've had some notable interactions with elk legs with every generation of our dogs. Usually, our dog is lying on the ground about 20 yards away gnawing on the elk leg, and I'm freaking out because I can't see where the camouflaged dog is. Acadia, K, and Shyla all did this to me. Now, every interesting animal bone gets hung in a tree!

That way, our dogs can't use their natural coloring to trick us when they're very nearby quietly enjoying a bone!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend. I've had a really big setback with my neck with the worst pain I've had in a long time. If I don't post on any day in the near future, it's just because I can't handle being on the computer. I'm still holding out hope that it will ease up on its own.