Trust me, I know this one lame photo doesn’t compare to the wildlife images our pal KB @ Romping and Rolling in the Rockies posts, but here is our contribution (albeit a couple months late) to her Year of the Bobcat (2010).
An alert neighbor called me Feb 10 to say this bobcat was crossing through our middle pasture. By the time I ran to a window with a view and got the camera ready, it had crossed into her pasture. You can see one of her two mules watching on as this feline visitor followed the creek bed down the valley.
We’ve lived here since 2001, and we’ve never seen a bobcat this close to the house. It was one of the dangerously cold days last week, so maybe this one was out of its normal boundary looking for food.
It went down into a thicket of willows, and even though, I watched for quite a while with binoculars, I could not see where it went after that.
I hope it found something to eat and a safe place to hunker down in the storm, which featured driving winds.
I noticed that our bobcats all changed their routines around that time as well. They seem to be returning to their usual “routes” and ranges just now…
Very cool that you got to see one! R and the Runner saw one while out running, and it was very close. Our little OCD boy, R, recalled off the bobcat on a dime. I’m so proud of him!
I hate it when you want to capture something on film and you can’t get the camera ready in time don’t you? You managed to capture it though! I know Bobcats aren’t that big, but I thought they were bigger than that. How very cool that you actually got to see one!
I was shooting the photo, Mel, from quite a distance. This was a pretty big bobcat, bigger than most coyotes we see around here.
Oh my goodness! I bet you’re right, that the bobcat was outside of his normal territory in the storm, but how cool that you got to see him so close!!