Junior bobs!! Bobcat kittens Lynx rufus Bright sun, 80+ degrees About a 100 yards off in the distance I spotted a bobcat. The cat was running what look like in circles. It did not look like it was hunting, it looked like it was just running back and forth. After a few seconds I realized that there were two kittens that were running after her! Junior bobs! How exciting and how brief was the sighting. I got about 75 yards away but she caught sight of me and quickly collected her kittens and disappeared into the chaparral. I was very excited and wished I could have observed them for longer but I was also very glad she was so protective of them. What a great bobcat mom! She is clearly doing a great job keeping them alive. How hard it is to keep herself healthy and hunt for her and the kittens as well as to keep them from harm's way...from other bobcats, from mountain lions, from birds of prey, from coyotes, from dogs and from humans. She and the two junior bobs looked healthy from that distance. I wanted to follow them but I chose not to because mom looked pretty alarmed when she saw me. I did not want to come across like a predator stalking her kittens. I wished them well and was so happy that I finally saw wild bobcat kittens out learning their new territory with mom. How cool!
Two bobcats in the grass Lynx rufus male and female bobcats thick fog and light mist. 6400 iso Today was a really cool sighting but very brief. I was watching a male bobcat hunting and I was behind him as he stopped and it was clear he sighted something but whatever it was, it was out of my field of view. The male was not taking a predatory stance but tail was wagging. The male would stop, stare and then slowly take a step. In hindsight I wished I moved over about 5 feet but I thought I would spook the bobcat if I moved. What the male was seeing was a female bobcat on the trail! Oh how I wished I took the chance and moved over the 5 feet. It would have been so cool seeing them looking at each other on the trail! When the male ran to the female, the two cats ran into the grass. They were not mating but more of a playful greeting where the male crouched and then leapt and the female popped out of the thick grass and leapt at him as well. Both tails high and wagging as they sniffed each other. And then the male left and proceeded to hunt. The female sat for a while watching the male and then she disappeared into the thickets. Pretty cool seeing this brief interaction. I just hope to see more like this in better lighting conditions so I can videotape without using 6400 iso!
Bobcat - Lynx rufus californicus Clips of a bobcat one evening as she was watching an area where a rabbit was grazing. She began to stalk the rabbit but rabbit ran into the brush and then so did the cat. As I got to the other side of the brush the cat had just emerged but with no rabbit. What was interesting to me is there were many quail on the trail as you will see in the video but the quail did not flush immediately and the cat showed no interest in the them and the quail seem to know the cat pose no threat to them.
