Tag: bobcat

Bobcat

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore

I was at Point Reyes the other day.  My old friend Handsome Bob, the bobcat, was there to greet me.  I have known this bobcat for several years now. I call him Handsome Bob because he has very distinct spots makings along his sides where most bobcats have fewer and fainter markings.

Bobcat hunting at Point Reyes National Seashore.

My Old Friend, Handsome Bob

Male bobcat.

Handsome Bobcat, After Eating a Very Large Gopher

I’m not very happy photographing animals against white skies.  It happens more with birds than mammals and I often don’t even bother, but Bob left me no choice.  He was looking his handsome self and so I cranked up the exposure compensation and fired away.  Bob looks good no matter what.  To see larger versions of Bob’s photos, click to see my portfolio pages here and here.

Bobcat

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore

A bobcat stops and poses in Point Reyes National Seashore.

This photo of a male bobcat was taken in March when things were still green out at Point Reyes.  The landscape is mostly bare now, thanks to the 6,000 to 7,000 cattle living year-round on Park Service lands.

I just learned that people like me who blog, and who have arranged it so their blogs immediately appear on their Facebook Profile when published, will no longer be allowed by Facebook to do that starting tomorrow.  One option is to start a Facebook Page.  Facebook Pages aren’t subject to this new rule.  I hope this change has a good purpose, like making it more difficult for the Russians to interfere with the 2018 election.

UPDATE:  Facebook didn’t wait until August 1.  I just checked and this post didn’t make it onto my Facebook Profile.

Bobcat

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore

Bobcat Point Reyes National Seashore

A bobcat crouches as it walks through the grass in Point Reyes National Seashore.

This bobcat photo was taken in Point Reyes National Seashore in early March.  The grass was nice and green from the winter rains.   It’s a different story now.  Thanks to our Mediterranean climate, for the next six months you’re photographing most wildlife in brown grass and scattered green shrubs.  In areas where there is no livestock grazing, the tall brown grass can be aesthetic.  But where grazing has occurred, it loses that tall, aesthetic look.  And where grazing has been heavy, it can get downright ugly.  It’s that way in a lot of the ranching area of the Seashore.  Needless to say, my favorite time of year to photograph wildlife in the Seashore is during the rainy season, from November or December through April.

Blacktail Deer

Blacktail Deer, Point Reyes

blacktail deer point reyes national seashore

Blacktail Buck at Sundown

I was out at Point Reyes recently.  Thistle and other vegetation that I’ll call “weeds” are growing tall, making it harder to spot bobcats.  I only saw one and he wasn’t having any of me.   I shot some video of a coyote who was in a field that had just been mowed to get rid of thistle and other weeds (not silage mowing), but the midday sun was harsh.  As the day was nearing its end I decided to go to the elk enclosure at Pierce Point.  I was there a bit photographing cow elk and yearlings in nice light.  After a while the light was fading and I decided to head home.  Shortly after leaving the elk enclosure I saw this blacktail buck.  He was bleeding a bit on the upper inside of his left foreleg.  I don’t know what that was from.

The sun was disappearing fast when I took this photo and I had to shoot at a much higher ISO than I like, but when I have a nice subject I just keep shooting and worry about the noise in the image later.

Black-tailed Deer

Blacktail Doe and Fawns, Point Reyes National Seashore

Look for fawns throughout the Seashore.
It’s Fawn Time!

Now is a great time to be at Point Reyes.  There are lots of elk calves to see and some deer fawns as well.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I think the heavy winter rains helped increase elk births. I think the same can be said for deer and most other critters.

One thing that I am always amazed at is how fast people drive in the Seashore as they rush to get to some particular location to start enjoying nature.  If they would slow down and scan the fields they would see all kinds of nature’s creations, such as coyotes, bobcats, badgers, elk, deer etc.  Plus, less wildlife would be killed by vehicles.   As Glenn Frey used to sing, “take it easy.”

Bobcat

Bobcats; Comparing Point Reyes National Seashore and Yellowstone National Park

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore
A bobcat moves through grass hunting for gophers at Point Reyes National Seashore.

I go to Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) often.  It’s rare that I go and not see at least one bobcat.  I also spend a month or so almost every year in Yellowstone National Park (YNP).   Yet, I’ve never seen a bobcat there in spite of the fact that they do exist.  I’ve often wondered why.

According to my most recent copy (2013) of the annual “Yellowstone Resources and Issues Handbook,”  bobcat numbers in Yellowstone are “unknown, but generally widespread.”  It says their habitat is in rocky areas and conifer forests.  It goes on to say that they are rarely seen, with most reported sightings being in rocky areas and near rivers.  I’ve seen a few online photos of them along the Madison River in winter.  Given the lack of stated population numbers, I assume they haven’t been studied much in Yellowstone, if at all.  I’m not aware of any bobcat study in PRNS either.  I assume PRNS doesn’t know how many bobcats there are in PRNS, let alone what their habitat preferences are.

In any event, why do I see bobcats regularly in PRNS and never in YNP?  I can only speculate.  My best guess is that it has to do with where the bobcat finds itself in the predator pecking order in each place.  In YNP the bobcat has to worry about grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes and mountain lions.  In PRNS it’s just coyotes and a very, very few mountain lions.  This may cause them to stick to the forests and other good cover in YNP without the same pressure to do so in PRNS.  If so, this reminds me of what I found last spring photographing pumas (aka mountain lions) in Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park (TDPNP) and adjacent private land. There are no bears or wolves in TDPNP.  There is a coyote-like predator there called the culpeo, but coyote-sized animals are no threat to a mountain lion.  While mountain lions in YNP stay in good cover, in TDPNP they feel no need to hide.  I saw 18 pumas in a week in TDPNP and all of them were in open areas – like the bobcats in PRNS.