One spot in the forest

One spot in the forest sees lots of visitors. It's an intersection of two animal trails that parallel a babbling brook.

Back on the 4th of July, the mother mountain lion came through and checked the pee mail.

Then there was a lull for a few weeks before a mother deer and a fawn arrived.

The mother deer hurried on while her fawn lagged at that dangerous spot. The fawn took off soon after this photo, running after the mother deer.

The fawn was back again two days later.

Less than 10 minutes after the fawn was there, the mother mountain lion arrived. I think that fawn was very lucky not to lose her life that evening.

The mother mountain lion decided to leave some pee mail.

Then, just two days later, another predator, a black bear, arrived to sniff the pee mail.

The bear didn't stay long. She bounded down toward the small stream.
I must say that the fawn has not appeared on the camera again since the mountain lion and bear came past it. I'm hoping that the mother smartly decided to move her youngster someplace safer.

The final visitor was the silly human who likes to monitor all this wildlife activity!

I've had a camera in this spot for a few years, and it rarely fails to amaze me how many animals visit it and sniff almost the exact spot where my front wheel was in this photo.

April Winter and a Mountain Lion

We are still in the grips of winter weather here in the mountains. 

Today, I used every trick I've learned over the years to lift my spirits. Playing with Shyla is a big one.

Although she hasn't returned to a normal diet yet after her "dietary indiscretion" last week, we feel that she's almost all better.

While we were out in the foggy, gray, and intermittently snowy day, I noticed an amazing little plant that somehow has survived this weather and has popped up through its own hole in the snowpack. That made me smile too!

Last, but certainly not least, seeing the photos of the mountain lion who killed and ate a deer right behind our house thrilled me.

You might remember that I just recently realized that the cameras near our house had captured the first photos ever of a mountain lion right by our house. I expected that the same lion had killed the doe on Friday night. I was wrong.

You can see that Friday night's mountain lion wore a GPS collar while the lion who came through our land on 4/13 did not have a collar.

The most recent mountain lion had eaten most of the meat from a small doe on Friday night. On Saturday night (when these photos were taken), her stomach still bulged. However, I also wondered if she's pregnant. This may be the mother mountain lion who separated from her kitten a few months ago and has probably mated since then.

I'll share more photos of the events at the deer carcass in the future. My trail cameras took thousands of photos so I need to sift through them before telling the rest of the story. The mountain lion has abandoned the carcass so the feline story has probably ended.

In the meantime, Shyla and I will keep on playing and training to keep the winter blues away.