Bobcat!

Yesterday, about 5:15 p.m., my wife, Laura, was standing at the entrance to our home making strange, truncated sounds, let’s just say. She was at the door because I was making a [store bought] pizza and the house starting getting smokey from previous food residue in the oven’s bottom I-didn’t-spy-with-my-keen-eye before turning on the oven getting extra crispy. I live in a perpetual haze, so it didn’t bother me, but my wife (being more human) had opened some windows. I have that effect on enclosed spaces. Anyway, as she was at the doorway uttering these “strange, truncated sounds” and clipped sentences with tones of excitement and surprise, I came over to see what was up.

She pointed out a bobcat casually strolling across the way from us!

She said she’d seen this rabbit run faster than she’d ever seen any animal run before and thought one of the neighbor’s dogs might have been going after it…but it was no dog!

So while she’s running throughout the house looking for our binoculars, I sprinted for my Nikon, and sprinted back, hoping in the process neither of us would plow into the other. We were good.

As we watched the bobcat, and I’m taking shots, my wife mentioned how cool it was that s/he just owned that sidewalk—and indeed s/he did! S/he was so majestic and beautiful! Casual. Like the rest of us, just sauntering home after a day’s hard work. Not interested in any bunnies, just making his or her way through the neighborhood. As I’m taking more shots Laura says I should go after it in the car so—great idea!—I waste no time and make for the SUV. Camera in hand, I hurry (appropriately following all speed limits, bien sur…) and find the critter farther down in the creek bed. I pull over, hit the hazards, and twisted as far as I could in my seat, rippin’ off one-handed shots I hope are in focus, cause I’m not an operative of Cirque Du Soleil (but it’s a good thing I do those twisty stretches at the gym) and my other arm just couldn’t do what I was asking it to do in that position in the vehicle. I don’t know whether or not bobcats attack, but more so, if the thing decided to sprint at my getting out of the vehicle on a busy-ish section of street at that time of the day, I wanted to be able to still follow it. Anyway, I got some really cool shots, but many have those “devil eyes”—which do look totally cool, as you’ll see below—and are not quite sharply focused, and a few are not centered in the frame (or whatever the official term is). All images are compressed.

About one or two years ago I’d seen my first up-close bobcat as it walked directly in front of my home-office window. It paused and looked right at me…looked at me, like “Yeah so? What are ya gonna do about it? I didn’t think so.” Then turned and continued on its way….

So this is entirely cool! What a majestic and beautiful animal, and I’m glad we both got to see this one!

Images taken with a Nikon D3400 and 70 – 300mm zoom lens, from a closest distance of about 20 – 30 feet.

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