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

Grand Canyon - North Rim Lodge

I thought this was cool and I had to share.

I took this video on my camera (a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7) of when Mom, Dad, Terrie and I went to the Grand Canyon back in September of this year. I had uploaded the video and pictures to my iPad but here is where it gets cool. I took the video and imported it into an app called iMovie for the iPad. With that app, I was able to modify the video as you see and then upload it to a couple of movie sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. By the way, if you have a Google account, you have a YouTube account and a Picasa account so you can upload both your pictures and your videos and post them here from your smartphone (iPhone, Droid, etc.) or tablet (iPad, Android tablet, etc.).

Here is the video on YouTube...

Here is the video on Vimeo...

The Grand Canyon - North Rim from Dean Flaming on Vimeo.

A view of the Grand Canyon from the North Rim

Additional Sonora Resort Pictures

I thought I'd post some of the other pictures we took while at the resort over our anniversary weekend.

Here's a shot from the helo while coming in for a landing.



Below is a shot of the passage from our room.



Speaking of our room, Terrie had to get shots of our fridge. All goodies inside are part of the room rate and no additional charge...along with calls to anywhere in the world.



Can't forget what's in the door...



Here's another shot of our view and room.



Terrie took me "for a drag" (i.e. Translates to "hike [with intent]") the next day (we took the BLUE trail as Terrie thought that'd be the easiest - what part of that was the "easiest", I'm not quite sure)...



...and the views (once we made it to the top of the world) were beautiful.



At one point while taking the above picture, Terrie was gesturing and couldn't tell if this meant we were at the "location of intent" or if she was holding something.... ;-)

Turns out she was just holding up the bear bell. Whew!! ;-) Let's just hope she's not "calling" a bear in. :-o



After recovering from the above "near death" experience (wink wink), we went on a boat cruise (You see what I mean by the word "intent"? For those of you who are not aware, water is another potential peril of mine.). It was just the two of us, our captain, and hostess (thank goodness there were witnesses this time). ;-)



Our Captain... He works for the resort and takes many parties out on the water throughout the day doing such things as fishing trips, eco-cruises (dolphins & whales, etc.) and more romantic cruises such as what we did.



Our hostess... She was sitting in the back as we were preparing for a somewhat fast run down to another area.



The boat cruise was really cool (and no, I didn't fall in or get wet).



We were able to see all sorts of wildlife...





Note the many heads sticking out of water in the above picture.

...some neat scenery...


Thank goodness it was really calm.







...and some uber-rich person's cool toys on one of the nearby islands.






And let's not forget Hers and His boats below....




After the boat ride, we came back and had dinner. I must say, they have the most wonderfully prepared meals. For dinner this night, I had the pasta and Terrie had the crab.



For lunch both days, I had the Sonora Burger....which was absolutely, hands down, the best burger I have ever had! It's their own mix of meat and spices - a combination of ground steaks. Even the homemade fries were great!


For a lunch side on the last day, I requested a plate full of their fresh grown tomatoes. They are absolutely wonderfully fresh tomatoes! You can see them in the background of the above picture.

On the day we left, it was rainy (to be expected in the Pacific NW - especially within the Inside Passage). Therefore, the helo flight back was mostly around the 300ft elevation level until it started clearing up. Fun!



Terrie and I on the flight back...



Coming in for a landing was really fun...



Taxiing up to the terminal where we took off, we noticed it was next to the air ambulance terminal. As you can imaging, Terrie had some flashbacks to her previous occupation. :-)





All-in-all it was a fantastic and wonderful weekend.

We both agree, Sonora Resort is a very cool place!


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Location:Sonora Resort, Surge Narrows, British Columbia, Canada

Sunrise at the Resort

How can you beat waking up to this?




Here's a better shot of just the sunrise.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sonora Resort, Surge Narrows, British Columbia, Canada

Surprise Anniversary Trip!

So, I'm sure some of you knew this already, but Terrie surprised me for our 18th anniversary by taking me to the famous Sonora Resort in British Columbia, CA.

In case you're wondering where it's at, it's a 45 minute helicopter flight up the Inside Passage, North West of Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

NOTE: For all images, click them to see larger versions.

In the below map of the Inside Passage and Vancouver Island, see the blue dot in the upper left corner - this is where the Sonora Resort is located.



As I said, we took a helicopter flight up to the resort. The flight was out of Vancouver right next to the International Airport. This was my 1st time ever on a helicopter! For you aviation types, it was an Agusta Westland AW-139 helo. Here we are (below) watching our fellow passengers board.




Of course, the weather turned out to be great which made the views spectacular!



The resort is quite stunning as well...



...and the room is very, very nice (apologies for my corniness)!

We're told we could see bears on the property too!!

Stay tuned! More to follow!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Sonora Resort, Surge Narrows, British Columbia, Canada