Seeing fresh, 4-toed, clawless, direct-register (back foot track on top of the front foot track) tracks on the front steps today, I was on the lookout for the little bobcat. I didn’t have to look far! Soon, there it was on the second floor deck right outside my window. I don’t think it’s been up here before. 
Bobcat from 12-26-22My first reaction was being shocked how small it was—only a quarter, maybe a third the size of the adults I’d seen this past winter. I had the wrong camera but tried to squeeze the bobcat into the picture—almost. I just cut off the tip of its nose and the tip of its black and white-tipped tail, catching it between two railing posts that measured 22 ½ inches between the inside edges. It wasn’t much bigger than a big housecat. I moved over to the door and met this curious cat looking in. I opened the door a crack to drop a slice of bologna. It bolted to the far end of the deck, and I don’t know how it got down to the ground. Sometime later, it was in the parking area going into the open car port where there is an entrance to a labyrinth of woodchuck tunnels. I thought maybe it lived in there out of the wind and under the ground where the temperature is almost certainly above freezing. A few minutes later, though, it was going up the driveway and out of sight.
 Bobcat track |
 Snow bear face |
Last night, some of you noticed that the slinking bobcat from January 13 of this year had the same unusual dot on the same spot on its nose as this one, making me and others think the two are parent and offspring. To show the dot, I included a close-up of its face from yesterday. To better show the blob of snow that some couldn’t make out to be the forequarters of a bear last night, I put a close-up of it in tonight and saw that the reason they couldn’t make it out is because it just bearly looks like what I said.
Looking bobcats up on Wikipedia, I read that they are usually born in May or June and are on their own by fall. I don’t know where the two adults are now or why we haven’t seen this juvenile in the neighborhood before the last couple weeks. I hope the cute little guy or gal keeps coming and maybe becomes less likely to bolt.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center