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.

A Curious Mountain Lion

I know a clearing in the woods that mountain lions visit frequently. It's on a saddle of a ridge so it's a natural spot for them to cross the ridge. A huge old Ponderosa Pine tree spreads its limbs on that saddle, and mountain lions like to mark their territory by scraping (with their hind paws) in the pine needles under it.

I know all of this because I have had trail cameras in that spot for years. Last year, I started getting worried because my rate of mountain lion sightings had gone way down. I'd gotten no mountain lion photos at that site in about a year. I worried that the lion population had plummeted for some reason.

This was a photo of a mountain lion in that clearing.

Then, one day as I rode my mountain bike through the woods, a cylindrical object on the forest floor caught my eye. I stopped, thinking that it was trash that I should pick up. After I examined it, I saw that it was an electronic device made by a wildlife company. I also saw tooth marks in the neoprene sleeve covering it.

I brought it home and Googled it. To my surprise, it was a light-sensitive device that made animal calling noises when it was dark outside. My reading told me that it was frequently used by photographers to entice wildlife to visit their cameras.

I thought, "What the heck? I've scarcely gotten any mountain lion photos in the past year. It's worth trying it to see what happens.". I put it on that ridge saddle, under the Ponderosa Pine. At first, not much happened except that the darn thing burned through batteries at a surprising rate.

Then, I found a series of videos on one of the trail cams on that saddle. It was a mountain lion who was intrigued by the device.

I thought that it was cool to get to see so much behavior by the mountain lion as he checked out the device and eventually took it away! The funny part, to me, is that theft by a mountain lion is probably why the device was lying on the forest floor to start with (remember that I said it had teeth marks on it?). Now, the device is floating around in the forest again...

Enjoy the video!

The Last Bear of 2016!

Our last bear wandered the paths in our forest in early December. Now, he's gone to bed just like all his brethren.

I have footage of his last days of wandering. It's remarkable how slowly he was moving as his metabolism wound slowly down toward hibernation.

Early on 12/3, he started walking on bear trails, albeit very slowly. I first picked up his image at a bear-marking tree. He sniffed it...

... and sniffed it some more.

Before leaving, he showed us the snow matted in his rump. I think he'd been sitting someplace for a while before he walked to this tree.

Just a little later, I found his tracks. On this remote road, he loped along the left edge, I rode my snow bike in the middle, and a rabbit hopped along the right of the road. We all left our tracks.

I captured video footage of this bear at several sites over the next 36 hours. He visited several bear-marking trees and then came to my house! That made me laugh after I'd had fun tracking him the previous day.

We have a bear-proof bird feeder that the local bears all know is truly bear-proof and rarely visit. I don't think that this bear was a local bear so he spent a long time on his hind paws staring up at the food over his head. His slow pre-hibernation behavior was markedly different from the behavior of the only other bear who visited back in May.

I hope that you enjoy the video!

More Mountain Lion Action

Yesterday was devoted mostly to trying to keep our black dog calm and not-too-unhappy. I can't blame him for feeling upset. He just went through this same thing so very recently. What he doesn't know is that this episode should be much shorter - assuming that the pathology reports are not bad.

In the meantime, I spent some time sorting through the 200 GB of footage that I have so far of animals eating the elk carcass. For today, I'll share mountain lion footage. No other mammals, like coyotes, dared to go near the carcass while the mountain lion was still interested in it.

In the video, you'll first see one of our favorite dog friends check out the carcass and try to eat a little of it before sprinting back to his human. Then, you'll see the mountain lion arrive for his second night of eating. The contrast between the Lab's size and the mountain lion's size is stunning to me.

The mountain lion was always very wary while at the carcass. He'd stop eating to scan his surroundings regularly. I'm not sure if he'd be so wary if he weren't close to humans. He did one bout of eating from nightfall until 7PM. Then he returned at 4AM and ate for an hour. I wonder if his umbilical hernia limits how much he can eat in one bout because it must hurt if his intestines get full.

His strength awes me. When he first arrived both times, it looked as if he tried to move the elk but couldn't pull it uphill. If it were a smaller prey item or if a secluded spot were downhill, I'm sure that the lion would have opted to move the carcass to a safer spot.

Finally, when he departed at 5AM, he covered the carcass with snow, using his mammoth paws to throw snow backward onto the carcass.

Enjoy the peek into a mountain lion's life in the video.

A Mountain Lion Kill

The other morning, my friend called to tell me that there was a dead elk on her land. She'd seen the carcass as she drove out for the day and asked if I'd go take a look to see if I could tell what had killed the elk.

I went to have a look. I saw the carcass almost right away based on her description of the location, and I stopped to scan the world around it to see if any predators were around. I didn't see anything scary so I went closer.

It was a cow elk. It was partially covered by snow and debris but the body was completely intact. It was obvious to me that the covering was intentional. Based on that clue, I immediately was sure that a mountain lion had killed her. Then I saw the mountain lion tracks in the snow, confirming my conclusion. It was a fast and precise kill, probably a severed spinal cord, that left no blood in the snow.

I took a few steps backward and again scanned the world around me. Was the mountain lion watching me? Was he nearby? Was he up high in the trees that were next to me? I couldn't see him but I imagined that I could feel his eyes boring into my back.

Seeing no danger, I turned back to the carcass, and my heart broke for the cow elk and her calf. I could see that she was lactating and her calf had been nursing up until the time of her death. I wanted to cry for that calf who surely wasn't too far away and for the mother who surely didn't want to leave her calf behind.

I pushed those thoughts aside so that I could work quickly. I had come prepared with trail cameras to document the predators or scavengers who would consume the carcass. It comforts me to some extent to know that other animals will flourish due to this windfall of calories and nutrition. I quickly set up the cameras, and I departed.

I picked up the memory cards from the cameras yesterday at midday. They told me that the mountain lion who killed the elk arrived a couple of hours after I set up the cameras. I was astounded to see from the trail camera photos that he arrived in daylight because this was a spot very close to a road and houses.

He was very wary, constantly scanning the world around him.

In between his nervous scanning, he started to work on the carcass. First he removed a lot of fur. Then, he had to break through the outer body wall. That takes great strength that you can almost sense in the next photo.

He stopped to scan again. When I saw this photo, I realized that I know this cat. He's been traveling through our area for at least a year. He has a distinctive abdominal bulge that you can see in this photo. I'm not sure what it is - but I do know that he seems as strong and as healthy as ever so it isn't preventing him from hunting and thriving.

This photo gives you a good sense of the relative sizes of the lion and the elk. The elk was at least twice as big as the lion, yet the lion took her down seemingly with ease.

This photo shows you how close to people he was. Do you see the vehicle behind him?

He took a break from eating after a while, and he stopped to pose for my camera briefly as he left to rest.

I also have a camera recording video, and I'll share that video very soon. I think that he'll be working on this carcass for a while if nothing goes awry.

I feel privileged to be able to see this secret life of our forest's fiercest predator. I promise that I'll share more of this episode in future posts.