Sensitive content! I did not expect to see this when I checked a couple cameras this morning. While I’ve found several old mountain lion kills based on the surrounding evidence, I’ve never seen anything that I suspected was a bobcat kill. This trail cam capture surprised me because I was not expecting anything like this would be captured by the trail cams, even after years of watching thousands of trail cam videos of deer and other wildlife doing their thing. I’ve reluctantly watched it a few times because while nature is beautiful, she is also brutal. The fawn and her mother are going about their daily business, eating, drinking water… Then in seconds, for the fawn, death appears in the form of a bobcat. Seemingly out of nowhere. Despite our big brain and intelligence, we humans are no different than the fawn. Death is the great equalizer, it can strike us anywhere, anytime.
Tag: sky islands
Bears being bears
It’s the time of year in Arizona when the temps are hot and the black bears are always happy to find a watering hole, either to drink or wallow. The following three videos are from the last few weeks during one of the hottest and driest periods this summer.
Two bears and a mountain lion
Two bears and a mountain lion passed by this cam in the span of three hours. At 4:08 p.m. a mountain lion makes a scrape. At 5:37 p.m. a big black bear goes by and smells the fresh scrape. At 6:42 p.m. the mountain lion returns and makes another scrape. At 7:06 p.m. a smaller black bear walks by and stops to smell the fresh scrape. I find it fascinating how close in time these two wild predators came to running into each other.
Bear sign and wallow
This morning I checked a few cameras in an area where bears have been active over the last few years. Bears have likely been visiting this spot for ages before I placed cameras there. The first clue of recent activity were new tracks and marks at an old bear marking tree. The second was murky water in the spring pool and wet vegetation nearby.
This bear seems to have a new injury to his left ear. It must be brutal out there. The stories he could tell… This will also help in IDing this guy if/when he shows up again.
Black bear action
The bear marking tree had some new visitors this week. While I was hoping to see the two yearling cubs again, the camera captured a different fun surprise, a sow with three new cubs (first video). The videos from the previous visit appeared to indicate via sounds that the two older cubs from the other bear family may have tried to climb a tree next to the camera, so last week I placed a second camera looking at that tree. The next surprise was a male bear using that tree as a marking tree (second video).
Owl fledgling watches bats
This great horned owl fledgling was getting a drink at a remote desert waterhole when bats decided they were also thirsty. Not sure which bat species they are, but it’s fun to watch them swoop in and try to drink while the owlet watches.
Bear cubs inspect trails cameras
It look like this is the same bear family as the scat video from a couple weeks ago, even though the cameras are a few miles apart:
Sky Island Mountain Lions
Over the last few weeks there’s been an increase in mountain lion captures on my trail cams. The following videos are from two different Arizona mountain ranges. It’s important to note that mountain lions in the Arizona deserts and sky islands often look “skinny.” However, this is a normal mountain lion body type in this region. They are healthy and have plenty of prey.
Mountain lion Flehmen response
About three months ago I was checking a camera I had set on an often-used bear wallow. Not far from the wallow, on the trail, was a fairly fresh mountain lion scrape. I decided to move the trail cam from the wallow and mount it on a tree looking at the scrape. This is one of the scenes captured by the trail cam:
Do bears sh*t in the woods? This video answers that question
A few weeks ago I found some bear tracks and a marking tree and decided to set up a trail cam and see what action it might capture. At the very least I was hoping to catch a bear simply walking by. After a week, I checked the camera and here’s what it captured:
A few days after the sow and her cubs passed by the camera site, this big male bear came through. He almost missed the scat pile, but then noticed it:
My Earth 