Spring at Home

Before telling you more about our desert trip, I wanted to share the fabulous spring conditions that we found when we came home. The first few days were gloriously sunny and warm.

The Pasqueflowers (wild crocuses) were blooming everywhere.

And the elk herd was nearby. All were in a phase of furious shedding for the "heat" of springtime.

As often happens, the elk herd pulled in the mountain lions. I believe that this is a female who has been in our area a lot.

She investigated the area near the elk herd carefully.

And then a male mountain lion showed up in almost the same spot less than 24 hours later.

So much snow had melted that I visited trail cameras that I hadn't seen in months. I discovered that a collared mountain lion had been around in February too - perhaps the same female as visited this week.

She sniffed in front of a camera.

And then turned to depart. What a strong creature!

Look at the thickness of her legs.

Now, after the warm and sunny sojourn, a spring snowstorm is hitting. I don't think it'll bring too much snow (less than a foot) but I feel ready to go back into hibernation. I'm tired from our desert fun and then our enjoyment of the brief spring weather here!

 Shyla's yawn sums up my energy level!

Beautiful Animals and a Thief

I love my trail cameras. They let me see what is going on in the forest, with a view that an actual human can never see because they scare the animals when they're around.

I've fallen behind in telling you about the very large numbers of mountain lions I've captured photos of recently. This was one of three occasions where I captured two lions together. I never saw the whole body of the second one so I'm not sure if they're a mother-kitten pair or a mating pair.

I'm guessing that they were a mating pair, because male mountain lions scrape the ground frequently, like in the next photo. This adult lion is in the process of kicking back with each hind foot, to leave a territorial "scrape". There's no reason for a male lion to be with another lion, except for mating.

For the following month, a mother deer and her fawns hung out in this spot. Aren't they incredibly cute?

And then, the top predator was back again. He sniffed the ground.

And then he carefully sniffed the low hanging tree branches. I'm betting that the deer had rubbed against them during their visits.

On the same night, I believe that the same mountain lion visited another "marking spot" that our lions are drawn to. I love this view... he looks so long and lithe.

Alas, today, I went out to check a favorite trail camera, and my faith in humankind was shaken again. The camera was gone - stolen. Some lowlife person must have seen it earlier in the summer, and then returned with tools for cutting the lock. So, it was "premeditated" theft.

It's amazing how I continue to be surprised by the downright mean behavior of some of our fellow humans. I should have learned by now that some people have no ethics. Instead, when I saw the camera's spot empty, I just stood there, feet stuck to the ground, as I attempted to digest the "news" that my camera had been stolen. I was shocked.

Just like last time this happened, I will not let the bad people win. Unlike when the first theft occurred, I now have a system in place that might help me get the camera back. The first time this happened to me, I had naively assumed that no one would ever steal a trail camera. Ha! I have some hope this time because I was prepared for it to happen again.

We will try to bounce back and forge forward, just like Sweet Shyla.

Nurse Shyla and Cats, Cats, Cats

We are down for the count here - the flu has taken hold of all humans. It's a terrible bug but we've learned that Shyla is a nurse at heart. She is alert to anyone who is coughing too hard or is having a terrible moment, and she rushes to that person's side, full of concern and kisses. Nurse Shyla...

Of course, dogs need exercise even when the humans are sick. Since I am less severely sick than the Runner, I took each of them for a romp.

And, they both took full advantage of it, getting out all that excess energy. Thank goodness that they can't catch this bug from us!

On this quiet day, I want to share a series of photos from one camera that has become the "cat camera" since the bears seem to have gone to sleep. On 12/1, the female who I believe has a kitten or two stashed nearby visited the spot.

She does not leave "scrapes" on the ground, huge obvious furrows that male mountain lions leave obsessively by kicking back with each hind paw. Moreover, I again thought that I saw enlarged teats in one of the many photos of her visit.

A graceful tail...

And, one more sniff before departing...

Less than a week later, the male mountain lion who I captured photos of more than a mile away appeared at the same site. Unfortunately, he never took exactly the same posture as the female so it's tough to compare their sizes. However, he left "scrapes" every quarter mile or so. They were big and deep scrapes that I couldn't miss.

Then, a few nights later, we got a treat. Here is our mother bobcat who we've followed since summer. This audacious cat urinated in the same spot as the mountain lions who are many times her size had been sniffing.

Her kitten was slightly behind but appeared soon, catching mom's attention.

The kitten sniffed the spot that has caught the interest of many cats but didn't mark it.

With mom ahead again, the kitten stopped to look at the camera before disappearing into the night following his mother.

It seems that a mother bobcat has successfully raised a kitten in our neck of the woods each of the past two summers. By spring, this young bobcat will strike out on his own to find an unoccupied territory.

I found it fascinating to see all of these cats sniffing and/or marking the same spot. The male mountain lion is a threat to all of the other cats. Moreover, any mountain lion is a threat to the bobcats, especially the kitten. Yet, the bobcats still use this territory despite the many scent marks left by the mountain lions.

Okay, Nurse Shyla says that it's time to go rest. She's the boss!

Mountain lion, dogs, elk, and coyotes

I still want to tell you a bit more about our desert trip because we made two more fascinating and beautiful stops that I haven't written about yet. However, K and I had an exciting bike ride today so I'll save the desert story for tomorrow.

As K and I started our ride, I could tell that an uncommon animal had been on our path. She was on high alert, darting from side-to-side and constantly scanning our surroundings. She relaxed briefly atop Hug Hill under rare blue skies.

Then, as we skirted an area where I have a wildlife camera, her nose hit the ground and she looked like a hound on the trail of a fox. I called her back and decided that, although I tend to try to keep the dogs away from my wildlife cameras to avoid permeating the areas with their scent, I was going to break my rule and check the wildlife camera that we were close to.

As I excitedly peered at my viewfinder, I discovered that the majestic mountain lion had returned to his scent post last night to leave a huge pair of furrows in the ground where he'd marked his territory by scraping backward with each hind paw.

I believe that this is the same lion as visited on 4/3 and 4/19/11. I made a "flipbook video" of his visit. It shows that he has a very full belly. He appeared to be walking past the scent post when the scents of other animals caught his nose. Then, he changed direction to leave his own territorial statement. You can view my flipbook video below or at my youtube channel.

Since his last visit to this scent post, a number of other animals have visited the scent post. First, a couple of dogs wandered through and peed on the previous scrape left by this lion.

The next one is not R - it's a different black dog.

Then, a few days later, a large faction of our elk herd paraded through. I counted about 50 rumps that passed the camera over the course of several minutes. Some of these prey animals were very interested in the scents left by their predators.

More recently, a trio from the local coyote pack came through. The first animal focused on my camera.

Then, they got down to the business of marking the spot as their own. Just like the last time that the coyotes visited this spot, each individual peed on the mountain lion scrape.

I have to say that when I compare the bulky, well-fed, and muscular mountain lion to those coyotes, I think that the feline rules this scent post!

I can feel the power of the mountain lion in that special spot in the forest. His spirit infuses the forest with mystery and energy.

He also adds an element of fear. The presence of lions is one of the main reasons why I am so vigilant about keeping the dogs nearby and under control!

The sun never rose

A snow storm invaded our air space last night. After the normal sunrise time, shadows still yawned from the edges of our forest. I felt like K and I were out for a night hike!

 

Soon, a gray light pervaded the forest. K happily frolicked among the trees.

Obviously, her thick coat insulates her well, keeping her body heat from escaping. You can tell because the snow on her fur doesn't melt!

We did some recalls in the quiet of the forest. K dodged trees and ducked under branches to zoom to me.

I love the muffled quiet of the forest in a snow storm. When I called K, I felt like I was yelling in the reading room of the library.

The quiet soothed my brain during my snowbike ride. The only sound was the squeaky cold snow under my tires. Not another soul had ventured out into the storm. Indeed even the animals were holed up. I saw only ermine and squirrel tracks on the otherwise blank slate of snow.

I love my Fatback Snow Bike. Without it, I would have been stuck on my indoor trainer today. Instead, I had a meditative ride through the magical snow storm.

I didn't see any mountain lion tracks today, probably because the snow was flying out of the sky so fast that tracks disappeared in minutes. However, an insightful reader (Jed and Abby in Merryland) asked some questions about mountain lions - their territoriality and reproductive schedule.

I keep seeing the tracks of what I believe to be the same mountain lion continuously doing hunting loops in a much smaller area than I've seen before in my tracking experience. It's probably a female or a subadult male based on the size of the tracks. Females have much smaller territories than males, as shown in the example diagram below.

Dominant males have huge territories, encompassing up to 500 square miles in some terrain. Their territories overlap with the smaller territories of a few females, and these females will probably be their mates.

There's a study of mountain lions going on in our area, as you all saw when a lion wearing a tracking collar passed one of my cameras.

However, nothing has been published from the study so I don't have specific information about the sizes of the home ranges of our cats. Some people speculate that the abundant prey and cat-friendly terrain has led to a much higher density of mountain lions in our area than in most parts of the country. I know that my cameras have picked up photos of at least one huge male lion, at least one mother and almost adult kitten pair, and several different smallish individuals who could be either females or young males. You can find all those photos on my wildlife photo list page.

A female's territory contracts when she has kittens, especially young ones who are not traveling with her yet. My suspicion is that the cat whose tracks I keep seeing in a very small area is a female with kittens. She can't go far because she needs to return to her kittens regularly for nursing. So, she keeps makes small hunting loops through our forest that never take her too far from her young. In more than a decade of exploring our woods, I've never seen similar-looking lion tracks as regularly as this winter. That's why I think that we have an out-of-the-ordinary situation, like a mother lion with kittens stashed around here.

Mountain lions breed all year around. The kittens stay with mom for about 18 months, and after the young disperse, mom breeds again, regardless of the time of year. Mountain lions have mating-induced ovulation, a system that makes sense for solitary animals who encounter others of their species only sporadically. Survival of the kittens is highest when they're born in the spring but a fair number are born in the cold of winter and survive. In fact, in our area, prey may be more plentiful for a mother lion in winter because the more than hundred-strong elk herd spends the winter here. Mountain lions prey on both deer and elk.

A great web page for information about the life cycle of mountain lions can be found here.

I've put all my wildlife cameras on the most regularly used mountain lion route through our forest because I'm hoping to hit the jackpot soon when our lion follows her familiar path through our pine forest. It is, after all, the Year of the Mountain Lion!