Caturday: An Amorous Mountain Lion Pair

Last week, I told you about the mother mountain lion and her two kittens who were in our area. I haven't seen them recently but a new saga started after they departed.

It began with this photo. I am focusing my trail cams on our remaining water sources now because so many natural springs and water holes are dry. This lion stopped for a drink. By itself, that's not unexpected.

Then, there was another drink by a lion. I didn't know if it was the same one or a new one.

When this third bit of footage appeared, I was thinking that a lion had a carcass stashed near this spring and was stopping for a drink on his way to and fro the carcass.

Then came one of the most surprising mountain lion images of a lion that I've seen in a long time. Look closely at the upper left corner. Yes, that's the nose of another mountain lion who was licking the drinking lion's fur.

I believe that the left mountain lion is a male and the one who is drinking is a female. The male repeatedly licked the fur of the female.

Then he got more forward and tried putting a paw on her back. The female growled - by far the lowest and most scary sound I've ever heard from a mountain lion.

Obviously not as impressed as I was by the growl, the male kept licking her fur and making small overtures as the female drank.

Then, the female growled again for good measure just before she got up to trot away. The male was on her heels.

This is almost certainly a mating pair of mountain lions. The above black and white photos were from the only footage of them together but each of them came to the spring in the days before and after they were together.

Here's one lion at the spring, the male I think. He'd drink and then crane his neck to look over his shoulder. I suspect that the female was somewhere back there. He is distinctive-looking with his whitish chest.

This pattern was still going on when I last checked the camera at the spring. A mating pair will spend at least a week together, if not longer. If the female is impregnated, she'll give birth in about three months - in October.

I have footage of this amorous mountain lion pair. I made two versions of it. The first is very short - it shows only the time when the two were together at the spring in front of my trail camera. The second is a bit longer, including snippets of the visits of the cats to the spring around the time when the pair was together on camera.

The short video:

And the longer version:

My trail cameras are incredibly time consuming but the amazing footage that they get makes the effort very worthwhile.

The Runner thought of quite a few one-line jokes to go with this footage. Can you think of any?

The Magic Carnivore Tree - Bobcat, Coyote, Fox, and Lion All Visit

Some of you may remember the big pine tree where mountain lions have marked repeatedly this winter.

You might remember this guy kicking off the marking season back in November.

Since then, the mountain lions have paraded to this spot. Each male has left his own mark in almost the same place as all the other lions.

Other carnivore species have visited as well. Here is a bobcat, small in stature but large in spirit.

As he departed the spot, he looked regally in the direction of the camera.

The next visitor was a coyote who brazenly urinated directly over the lions' scent.

The coyote was very wary, fleeing toward the cover of the forest a couple of times (as you'll see in the video). Here, he stood still to listen for danger. I bet that he smelled the recent markings left by lions who could easily kill him.

Finally, one of the kings of our forest visited just a couple of nights ago. He marked in almost the identical spot as the first lion back in November!

My trail cameras record video, which I put together into a single video of the visits of all of these animals. You can watch it here or over at Youtube.

Happy Wildlife Monday!

Bold Lions out in Daylight

Mountain lions are cruising our forest frequently and boldly. Unlike usual, they've even been nearby during the day.

At a mountain lion marking site where big males have left deep scrapes in the ground, a young mountain lion stopped to sniff. First, she sniffed the ground.

Then, she sniffed the air. Soon, she was back to air scenting with her long lithe neck craned to get her nose as high as possible. The wind was wildly whooshing out of the west, and she clearly smelled something. In fact, it might have been Shyla and me. We were generally upwind of her at about that time.

Then, she bore a hole in the camera with a stare.

Two things make me think that she's young and a female. First, you can faintly see her kitten spots under her fur. They are more obvious in the video. As for being a female, I am basing that on the fact that she did not mark this spot. I think that a male would have.

It was so cool to watch her bound away in a kittenish way. I have *never* seen an adult mountain lion do anything but a lumbering walk.

Just two days later, a mature male mountain lion showed up at the old elk carcass from almost a month ago. Look at the size of his paws!

He meticulously sniffed every detail on the ground, and then he sniffed the carcass.

I'm betting that his cat has a kill nearby. He headed further downhill with a purposeful gait when he departed. Moreover, look at that full stomach hanging downward.

I think that he's a male because he left two marking scrapes out of view of the camera. Usually, males mark and females don't. Also, his bulk makes me think that he's a male.

I made a video of the visits of these two mountain lions to my camera sites which you can watch here or at Youtube. If for no other reason. watch it to see the young mountain lion bound away. It was amazing to see!

Happy Wildlife Monday!

Mama Bear and her Cub

Throughout this summer and fall, it's been amazing to see the mother bear and cub pair so frequently via my trail cams.

The cub who was so tiny at the start of the summer is looking so big and healthy now! She and her mom recently walked a bear trail in our neck of the woods, giving us a nice view of how big the cub is!

Here was mom as she passed the camera.

This is still mom, a step later.

Then, here is her cub. She is looking SO big!

The camera didn't catch the cub going over the fallen tree but I so enjoyed seeing her healthy!

We now have two bear families intensely using our neck of the woods. The other one is the mother with two cubs. I am hoping so strongly that one of these families chooses the den for this winter that I have staked out with a cam. These cubs will stay with their moms through the winter and early spring. So they will share dens with their moms!

I have some fun footage of the mother bear with the single cub at a water hole. I talked with a biologist about the fact that the bears love this absolutely horrendous smelling water hole so much. As one of you suggested a while ago, the biologist's first guess was that something in the water kills both external (e.g., ticks, fleas) and internal (e.g., intestinal) parasites. That might explain why it seems to be the favorite water hole of our bears every summer.

At this water hole, the bears make sure to get this water all over their bodies, including their heads, whenever they bathe there. You'll see that in the first 3/4 of the video. Then, later that evening, the pair visit a very clean water source. It's fun to see mom stop in a certain spot for a noisy drink, lapping up the cold water, and then her cub imitate her behavior so closely!

Here's the video. I hope that you all enjoy it either here or at Youtube.

A Bear Selfie!

I love it when animals interact with my trail cameras, even though it sometimes results in severe damage to the camera!

A black bear passing through our neck of the woods (not a long term resident bear) was examining a bear marking area when he noticed my camera. When watching the video, be sure that your audio is on so that you can hear him breathing and panting.

He seemed to look for food near the camera, and then he noticed the camera. He sniffed it, showed it his teeth, and then gave it a look. We got a closeup of his face and then his eye in the process!

After that, he headed over to the marking tree and left his "I was here" message.

It's just a simple little observation of a black bear living his life - but I love it!

You can watch the short video either here or at Youtube. I've made a pact with myself not to let any fun wildlife videos languish in my archives this year (unlike previous years). I hope that you enjoy them like I do!

I adore our bears. Their quirky personalities make me laugh regularly!

A Mountain Lion and her Two Kittens

Some of you know that I've been lamenting how few mountain lions my trail cams have been capturing. Some of my cams have been in the same spots for years, and far fewer lions have passed them in the past year than most years. Recently, I had the excitement of a trio of mountain lions passing two trail cameras!

I saw this photo from my trail camera, and I expected it was just one mountain lion passing by.

Then, I saw this photo. Another set of eyes had appeared.

Then, I got very excited because yet another set of eyes had appeared to the right. Moreover, you can see the eye and body of another mountain lion on the left side of the kitten.

The kitten glanced back toward his/her family.

The kitten looked the other way...

... and then the kitten departed to follow mom.

I also captured footage of the mountain lions with a trail camera that records video. It is just so cool to see three mountain lions together! Check out the video!

The trio remained in one area for at least a few days so I suspect that they had prey cached nearby. I hope that we catch some more glimpses of them in the future!

Tiny the Black Bear Survives a Stick Impaled in his Leg

Back in mid-May, I saw something disturbing on my trail cams. Tiny, one of our biggest male black bears, had a stick impaled in his hind leg. Look closely at his right hind leg/rump.

Then, two days later, he walked past with the stick gone but an obvious open wound.

At first, my footage of him showed no limp and plenty of energy. However, by 3 weeks later, he looked terrible. He'd clearly licked the area extensively and the fur there was very thin. He had a painstaking limp, and he was not marking trees that he'd normally mark dramatically.

I was worried. My guess was that he had an infection. I wished that I could somehow give him an antibiotic. I laughed at myself for even thinking such a thing.

Then, he disappeared for a full 8 days. That is extremely rare during mating season. I worried even more.

Then, to my utter delight, I found footage of him on a couple of cams. I could still see some evidence of thin fur on his hind end but it was already much better. It's molting season too which probably helped that to improve quickly. Plus, he was walking nearly normally, and he was marking trees again!

I made a video of the various stages of his saga. At the end, he was walking "normally". By that, I mean that he was walking like a bear near marking trees in mating season. He was using a gait sometimes called a "cowboy walk". It's a way of grinding his paws deep into the dirt to leave maximum scent from his paw pads.

Near the marking trees, there are bear tracks which are impressions of exactly where every mature bear who passes that spot places his/her paws. It's extremely hard to see or photograph but it's easy to feel. For a bear as big as Tiny, he has to shorten his stride to hit the right spots. Plus, he swings his hind legs out to the sides as he walks when he's in these tracks - the "cowboy walk".

After all that technical stuff, the main thing is how relieved I am that Tiny is okay. We have two main male bears in our neck of the woods, and they've ruled for about a decade, as far as I can tell. I'm glad that this spring was not the time that we lost one of them.

Here's the video.

I'm a very happy bear observer today!

A Mother Bear and her Cub

It is truly springtime here in the mountains, when the wildflowers bloom and the black bear cubs appear. I love this time of year more than any other!
At a secluded spot deep in the forest, a mother black bear and her solo cub have been staying near a spring with a bear marking tree next to it.

These are photos taken of the pair just a few days ago. Mom checked a bear marking tree with her cub in tow.

Then, they turned and went the other way. Solo cubs are fairly rare, and mothers taking cubs to marking trees during mating season is also rare. I really hope that the single cub is nursing enough to prevent the mother from going into estrus. That has happened occasionally - and the mother mates again, often to the detriment of the solo cub who might get lost or hurt during the process.

Pushing aside those worries, my cams caught delightful footage of this pair at a spot where there is a bear marking tree and a spring right next to each other. I have two cams there, one pointed at each spot.

First, you'll see the cub arrive at the bear marking tree. It is comical how tiny the cub is compared to the bears who mark the tree. Many of them are taller than the tree itself!

Then, you'll see mom taking a bath about 10 yards away. As mom bathed, something spooked the cub who then climbed the tree that my cam is mounted on. After the mother finished bathing, she first examined the cam closely - making me momentarily scared that she was going to attack it like Bandit did with another cam.

Then, mom started calling the cub down from the tree with soft grunts.  Be sure to have your volume turned up so that you can hear these sounds that humans very rarely get to hear!

Enjoy the video either here or at Youtube.

I hope that seeing black bears going about their everyday lives makes you smile like I do!

P.S. The cam that Bandit appeared to have destroyed was fixed by the trail cam company for a low cost. That made me smile too!

Bandit the Black Bear Demolishes my Trail Camera

Our young male black bear was drinking from a spring when he noticed my trail camera. Unfortunately, unlike many bears, he didn't just sniff it. He killed it!

When I arrived at the site, I saw my cam broken into two pieces, a padlock pried open, and the front part of the camera on the ground. At first, I was furious, thinking that a bad human had done it. Then, I noticed that the memory card was still in the camera, and that made me think that maybe it wasn't a human who destroyed it.

Indeed, the memory card showed that "Bandit", the young male bear who I introduced you to yesterday had attacked the camera. I felt so much better that a bear had destroyed the camera rather than a human. After all, I put my trail cams right in the midst of where bears live out their lives - so this type of thing is expected. Young ones like Bandit get curious, and they use their strength to fully investigate a camera. It was my mistake not to have the camera in a bear case.

Bandit

The trusty camera kept recording video until the "end".  The two parts in the photo below were attached to each other before the cam was attacked... I wish that I'd thought to take a photo of the camera at the scene but I was a little too rattled to remember to do that.

Here's the video of Bandit killing the camera (from the camera's point of view) plus a video of him attempting the same thing with another camera on a snowy day a couple of weeks later. I think that bear security cases are becoming essential due to this youngster!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

It's rather shocking and scary to see Bandit's teeth attacking the camera from the point of view of the camera. I am generally not worried about bears when I'm in the forest because they are so timid. This video gave me some idea of the power they possess. We are lucky that they are normally timid!

A Bear Who Earned the Name "Bandit"

While we were innocently playing around in the desert, a certain bear was plotting revenge for my "spying" on him with my trail cameras. But, we had no idea...

We were so relaxed, having no idea what might be underway at home.

It turned out that a youngish male bear was visiting areas where my trail cameras are located. I got fun video of one of his silly attempts to mark a tree. Milton also marked the same tree, which gives you a chance to compare a mature dominant male bear to a young adult male bear who really doesn't stand a chance of competing (yet).

It turned out that Bandit's mischief was expensive to me. I discovered it today, and I'll get to work on a video to share it with you. I'll give you the hint that I gave him the name "Bandit" after finding his handiwork today.

For now, here's an introduction to Bandit. He's a silly youngster who isn't very good at marking trees yet and isn't anywhere near as strong or skilled as a bear like Milton.

If you have trouble watching the short video here, check it out on Youtube.

Tomorrow, I hope to show you why I decided to name him "Bandit".

On another note, I've had a lot of trouble getting caught up with my work since getting home. I hope to catch up with all of you very soon! My apologies for being so slow.

A Coyote Pack on a Frosty Morning

Forgive me for a mostly-photo post today. I finally went to the doctor for left-over symptoms of a cold that I had at Christmas, and it turns out that I have a sinus infection. I started my antibiotics yesterday, and I feel as if I can barely function. I'm so tired! I'm hoping that's a good sign that the medicine is working.

Today I want to share some beautiful photos of coyotes on one of our hoar frost covered mornings recently.

As Shyla and I headed up toward where the coyote pack photos were taken, the world looked like this - simply gorgeous in my opinion.

Shortly beyond this point, the coyotes had gathered around a wildlife marking spot. I didn't know it but Shyla did. She added her two cents to the messages left earlier by the coyotes.

You'll see from these photos that Shyla's nose had told her to mark almost exactly where the coyotes had been.

The first coyote came through about an hour before the rest of the pack. He left a message.

An hour later, a group of coyotes came through. Here was the forerunner.

Then the pack arrived. I thought that it was cool that we were all so close together, gathered around the marking spot.

Then, they all seemed to become more wary for an instant.

Very quickly, most of them went back to sniffing except for the gorgeous one looking very noble on the left.

Then, they started to leave, one by one. Each of them left pee-mail on the marking spot.

The last message...

I love coyotes. I have a video of a coyote pack howling on Youtube, and I'm consistently shocked by the hateful comments people leave about coyotes. I delete them but there always seem to be more haters viewing it. I wish that these magnificent animals would be appreciated as our most successful wild canine.

The dance among the lion and scavengers at an elk carcass

I'm sure that some of you remember the story of the mountain lion who killed a cow elk on my friend's land that I talked about in two posts (Post 1 and Post 2). I set up trail cameras all around the carcass to capture footage of the lion and the scavengers who ate every last bit of the elk.

I haven't had a chance to tell you about the scavengers who moved in in the mid-day hours as well as after the lion abandoned the carcass on December 17. They included magpies, ravens, a golden eagle, and coyotes. The coyotes even howled occasionally!

I put footage of the scavengers together into a video that I thought that you might enjoy seeing. I think that a fascinating aspect of it is the interactions among the scavengers and the lion.

It was interesting to see how worried the coyotes were when they dared to go near the carcass during the phase when the lion was still nearby. The first coyote clip shows an example of that behavior. No doubt, the lion would kill a coyote he found the coyote eating his hard-earned elk meat.

I also enjoyed watching the magpies and ravens brazenly continue to eat while the coyote or golden eagle was on the carcass. Seeing a Golden Eagle was really a treat!

Then, in the last clip, I loved watching and hearing the coyote howling while at the carcass!

You can watch the short video here or at Youtube.

One Year Ago - Bear Cubs were Born!!!

You might remember that I discovered a bear den years ago. It was occupied in the winter of 2009-2010 by a sow with her yearling cubs. Then, I kept a trail camera pointed at it for SIX years before the den was used again. Last winter (2015-2016), it was occupied again. .

My trail cams in the area saw the last sow walk a nearby bear trail at the end of October, 2015. Her movements suggested that she was heading toward the den. I waited until December 10, 2016 to check the den for an occupant. I completely expected it to be empty so I walked straight to the entrance and peered into the murky cave. A pair of eyes was looking straight back at me. I think that I jumped a foot or two into the air!

I quickly retreated and gathered trail cameras that could record photos and video. I revisited the den to set them up. Then, I waited and waited and waited before going back again. I didn't want to do anything to upset the bear.

At the end of February, I returned to the den to check the cams. No sounds emanated from the den so I didn't know until I got home and put the memory cards into my computer that the mother bear had given birth to two cubs on 1/31/16!

Here was the time line of the mother bear's actions.

All through the winter until 1/14/16, the bear ate snow only twice, both times by reaching her head outside the den to take a bite or two of the snow on the ground.

On 1/14, things changed. She began eating snow at least once per day. She wiggled so that her head reached further outside the den, day by day.

Then, on 1/30, she was a restless bear. Her head was visible in the den entrance almost all day.

She ate snow many times. Twice, she walked outside the den. Each walk was only about 6-8 ft in distance but it was an odd departure from her behavior earlier in the winter.

On the night of 1/30, she seemed not to sleep. She looked outside the den, and she seemed to toss and turn until our last video clip at around 11 PM. After that, she was deep in the den, and there were no visible movements to trigger the cams.

The next morning dawned with incredibly strong winds. The tree holding the cams swayed in the wind, which triggered a cam to record video and audio. The audio told the story - cubs had been born, probably very early in the morning of 1/31/2016!!!!!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube. Make sure that your sound is turned ON!!! The bawling of the cubs tells you the most exciting part of the story!

I know from the accounts of others that the cubs were tiny when they were born. They would have fit into a human hand. The scientific literature says that they weighed about 1 pound when they were born. They spend almost all their time over the first months of their lives latched onto nipples, nursing. They bawl like you heard in the video when they lose their grip on the nipple or are not covered by mom so they get cold.

I plan to follow along with this story from last year. Last year, I severely limited my visits to the den and my cams to avoid upsetting the bear family. Each time I visited, I got more than 100 GB of videos and photos, and I was unable to keep up with watching all of the footage and posting it in a timely way. I plan to post new footage this year, using the "extra" footage that I didn't post last year.

I hope that you enjoy it!