Bobcat Update

I went back up the river Tuesday March 6th, we had some snow last night in town so I knew there would be fresh snow at my set, I couldn't resist. Fresh snow is like looking into a crystal ball not so much for the future aspect but more of a exact time line of the past. On the drive in I pick up a pair coyote tracks about 3/4 of a mile from where the kill is and there hunting the road corridor by the way there tracks are working. Coyotes register in a straight line meaning there is no off set in their tracks like domestic dogs or bobcats or anything else for that matter.

A couple of examples I poached off the web :)

So it’s pretty obvious what there going to smell when they get down the road a ways, sure enough there tracks go left just were I figured they would but to my surprise no coyote pictures just tracks everywhere but in front of the camera or what the bobcat considers to be it’s personal space. The slideshow of pictures below shows it happening. The bobcat definitely defended it’s kill. The coyote tracks came in from the left circled around to the right then back around to the left, just exactly what the cat is showing in the sequence. You can see about half way through it charges out and then proceeds to give the evil eye to the receding coyotes. Sure wish I had the camera set to video with sound. Shoulda woulda coulda.

The lighting issues are from my slave flash, it’s a cheepo and doesn't quite keep up with my camera. A little tweaking is in order.

This cat is definitely a badass (sorry mom) it takes down a full sized doe, tries to scare me off and defends it from two coyotes ! From the time stamps on the photos the coyotes left at 9:45 the cat relaxed at it’s kill for about 15 minutes then leaves when it hears me walking in. I always wave my hand in front of the camera to get a timeline, we missed each other by 2 minutes, barley!

But wait ! About 40 yards away through the reprod (second or third or forth… timber plant) I hear a Stellars Jay scolding something !! What are the chances it’s scolding something other than a bobcat? Time to sit down and hide, I’m sitting off to the side watching through the holes here and there in the brush along the path that the jay is traveling and sure enough a flash of fur ! I gave it a while but no more appearances, it must of known something was up. After hoping to see the cat up close I circled the area to find it’s tracks, they’ll tell me what it was doing and how close it was. Sure enough it was in the brush directly behind it’s kill but wouldn’t show, then backtracked all the way around to my right 180 deg. and belly crawled up under a hemlock tree to peek out checking to see if the coast was clear but still no show. Man these things are sneaky, all the while never being more than 70’ away and at the hemlock tree about 30’ from me and I never even saw it. Of course I looked over my shoulder a few times on the way out, and yeah I had my shotgun with me.

Here are some of the better pictures so far.

Typical cat….nothing to do and all day to do it.

Feel free to use any of these pictures or request copies of the originals. The grouse will be drumming soon and are fun to set up for, plus I have a camera set at a local cougar crossing. I’ll keep posting.

Dave

Life is good when you have food...A bobcat with a fresh kill

OK here we go! My first Blog entry. The first one on my own anyway.

I had a stoke of good luck last Thursday morning while driving in to check my cameras, I noticed a dead deer just off the side of the road and sense it is a fairly active logging road I first thought that it was hit by a car but upon closer inspection and reading tracks in the light snow that deer had been killed by a bobcat! The tracks told the story, the cat was in the ditch on the opposite side of the road, the deer tracks came out of the brush in a normal walking gait but once at the ditch it lept pronk. From there on the shoulder of the road the cat must of been on the deer because the of the sign was only from the deer and quite erratic at that, after about 25' of chaos the deer lay dead.

This picture shows how the cat left it's kill partially covered. How it looked when I found it.

Without the snow I would of assumed a cougar had killed it. Well what to do now? That's easy, Put a camera on it right? Well it’s right on the side of the road and I didn't have one with me but I am going in to check a couple so I'll just bring one out  and set it up later but first things first. I stashed the deer behind some brush to get it off the side of the road. A couple of hours later after checking my cameras and bringing one out I return to the kill and find that the cat has been back and feeding!  Assuming that I have scared it off it's kill and it is probably close by I'm being cautious. After a few minutes of looking around I'm thinking the coast is clear (yeah right, bobcats are hard to see when they're moving and practically disappear when they stop) bending over to put a couple of loops of cord on the deer's hind legs to move it further from the road I hear this low guttural growl coming from the brush about 25 yards away! WHOA!! That's directed at me! Time to finish up this set but first I'll get my shotgun from the car. Well I got everything setup without getting attacked, and returned March 4th to change out cards and batteries, 700+ pictures in 72 hrs!  I Should of extended the camera delay a bit but what the heck digital images are free. Most have fog on the lens because I forgot my rainx wipes but still very happy with the results. This cat is quite adamant about covering up his kill which is probably because he is tired of me moving it.

This is a picture of my set up when I left last Sunday. My camera foreground left, notice how well the deer is covered.

 
This is the culprit, To put this into perspective Bobcats weigh in between 20 and 30 lbs. This cat  is probably in the high twenties not counting all the venison in his stomach the deer is a mature doe that I guessed to weigh around 85 to 90 lbs.

  

These two show the cat lounging with it’s kill, life is good when you have food!

There’s more to this story, Stay tuned for more! (yeah that was old Paul Harvey line) oh and sorry for all the false posts, Dean had to help after all. Dave

More Game Cam Pics

In honor of my first blog posting, here are a few more Game Camera pictures I thought were pretty neat looking.

Here’s roughly where I had the game camera mounted.

Here’s a Steller’s Jay from the backyard bird feeder.

And for good measures, here is a Calliope Hummingbird coming in at night to feed at dusk.

Here’s the type of game cameras I’ve made using a pelican 1020 case. First picture is a look at one of the first ones closed up. The second picture below is the insides. The camera is a Sony DSCW-90 and the camouflage on the outside is just bondo-glass and creative painting using outdoor colors from a good old Rustoleum spray can using leaves and plants from the yard for stencils.



For some other examples and pictures, check out CamTrapper.com.

Game Cam Update From David

David sent a Game Cam update...

Here are a couple of cool pictures I got over the weekend, the first is an American Kestrel. The second is Mama Bear pawing my camera, yeah those are claws you see & baby in the background. Sooner or later I think she is going to eat my camera, I'm still on this set but have two cameras facing each other to see just what it is she is doing to the camera (the second camera is now on the far right tree) so next week I'll get pictures from two different perspectives. Dave










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