Day of the Cats…

We had a Mountain Lion hanging around the TNC last Fall. They was forced to close for a week I believe, to avoid any issues with humans. The last known siting was November 2012 area I believe.

Yesterday, the TNC Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve manager was checking the motion cameras and had what he thought was the Mountain Lion but the image was at night and was very blurred.

About 1 hour later we had two visitors tell us they saw the Mountain Lion.

Today at 6:41 am Pauline was on her normal morning walk when she texted me that she saw the Bobcat in the clearing, so I grabbed my camera and went as fast as I could to see if I could find it.

I had NEVER seen a wild cat in the wild. Zoo’s yes, actually in the wild, never. I have seen Bear, Moose, Wolves, Coyotes, Bison, you name it, odd’s are I have seen it in the wild, except for a wild cat of any kind.

Until today!

I got to the clearing, saw the Bobcat, took as many pictures as I could, but he was low in the grass and I was facing the low rising Sun, so I knew the pictures would not be the best, so I backtracked back to the trail and took the trails to out flank the Bobcat, while on the trail I had a great shot of the Bobcat and took even more pictures.

But I knew if I continued on the trail I could get on the far side of the Bobcat and get really good pictures, so I started to walk as fast as I could and as I started to go down the stairs I see the Mountain Lion sitting on the trail, looking right at me, no more then 30′ from me.

I stopped.

He stared.

I stared.

I took as many pictures as I could, about 4-5 minutes of staring at each other, he walked away and went around the bend. I gave him a good 30-45 seconds before I slowly fallowed only to find him disappeared into the bush. I never heard a sound.

I did however see what he was sitting on the trail for, a mother deer and fawn was no more then 20 yards from us and they was completely clueless to his presence.

So within a span of 1 minute I saw two kinds of wild cat, in the wild.

I am writing this 2 hours later and I am still geeked from my adrenaline rush.

What a wonderful morning!