This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This owl was in a tree next to the road to Point Reyes Lighthouse. Point Reyes National Seashore has a healthy population of great horned owls. The ranching portion of Point Reyes is mainly made up of grazing lands. These lands have a fairly high population of gophers and other rodents. They are also punctuated by stands of mature trees. Find a stand of mature trees and you’ll find a pair of great horned owls.
I saw this bobcat for the first time a couple of days ago. He’s very well-marked. I’m used to seeing bobcats in Point Reyes National Seashore with little or no distinctive markings on the torso. This guy has very pronounced spots and stripes on his trunk. I think I’ll remember him as “Handsome Bob.” Unfortunately, Handsome Bob didn’t stop in the prettiest place. It looks like a badger has been through here shortly before Bob and really tore the place up. I saw a coyote stop here and hunt a couple of weeks ago. It must be (or was) a good spot for gophers and/or other rodents. Click here to purchase a print of this image.
This bobcat was hunting gophers. Gophers are plentiful at Point Reyes, at least in the agricultural areas. They are an important food source for coyotes, bobcats, badgers and other predators at the Seashore. If this bobcat could talk he would probably say there is no such thing as too many gophers.
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time photographing at Point Reyes the last six months or so and hadn’t seen a badger until the other day when I spotted this one taking a rest on its diggings. For much of that period I wasn’t really focusing on looking for badgers, but after having a fair amount of success with my main interests, coyotes and bobcats, I decided recently to concentrate on looking for badgers. I was pleasantly surprised at how soon I spotted this badger. When I was in areas that had obvious badger activity I made sure I focused my attention on any signs of fresh badger diggings and on nothing else. Having said that, I’m sure luck was still the biggest part of the equation.
Some cows were grazing their way into its path and it decided to head underground to avoid getting stepped on. But for the cows I would probably have only gotten shots of the badger at rest. Unfortunately, it didn’t come up again before it got too dark to photograph. I came by the next morning at sunrise, but it wasn’t visible. It may have moved on, but I think it was underground. There were so many gophers making themselves visible while the badger was taking its rest that I doubt it needed to move on by the morning to find more food.
