A tule elk cow standing on the hillsides of Tomales Point in Point Reyes National Seashore. She was part of a very large herd that surrounded my car after I pulled off the road in February. I liked the setting with that lone cypress tree in the background, and was hoping to include in a picture. I picked a spot and waited for an elk to approach for the shot I had in mind -- she didn't quite line up where I wanted, but since I was in the car, I made do with the angle I had.
When this bobcat decided to go off trail for a bit, it made the photography a little more challenging, since it was wandering through an area with a lot of dead vegetation. But I stayed patient and waiting for the moments that its head was in a clearing to try to get an unobstructed view of its eyes. It's amazing how much of the clutter in an image your mind will ignore if you can get contact with a clean set of eyes.
It was cruising along when it heard something in the undergrowth. It just happened to stop right in a clear line of sight for me, and even gave me a glance before continuing its walk.
Three shots from our weekend encounter with this lovely bobcat in Tennessee Valley. After finishing its meal and strolling down the trail for a bit, the bobcat decided to take a break in the bushes just off of the trail. There were a lot of branches around, but thankfully it picked a spot where I could shoot over the coyote brush to get an unobstructed view of its face.
They are such beautiful animals, and they seem to carry themselves as if they know it. This one looked quite regal, even with its eyes closed.
The cat was eventually brought out of its restful trance by a small white dog following its master down the trail. The shot below is of it eyeing up the dog as it passed -- we were able to watch it turn its head to follow the progress of the fluffy canine. I'm not even sure that the owner knew there was a cat in the bushes, but you could tell that the cat was contemplating if it was worth taking a run at it.
After many hikes in the Bay Area looking for bobcats, my wife finally had her first encounter yesterday! I've been fortunate to see them on a handful of occasions, but only ever on trips that I had taken alone (including a brief view of one in Point Reyes National Seashore on Saturday). My wife has really wanted to see one, and she finally got her chance in Tennessee Valley. We had a fantastic encounter, including watching it finish eating a rodent then take a pounce at another, as well as cleaning itself after the meal and wandering through the brush. A nice first experience for sure! Strangely enough, her first sight of one in the wild came on the 1st anniversary of my first bobcat sighting. Since she was quite excited about seeing this beautiful cat, I let her pick which image I should post first. She thought this one was funny with the cat sticking its tongue out at us :)
Yesterday was one of the best trips to Point Reyes National Seashore I've had in a while. The park never ceases to surprise me, and even though the day started slow with a lot of rain for the first hour after sunrise, I left the park later that afternoon with a ton of images to sort through. One of the highlights of the trip was spending some time in the middle of a very large herd of tule elk up on Tomales Point. I've had great experiences with the elk before, but never in a group this large. Perhaps in the winter some of the smaller herds form together into a larger one. Anyway, this is one of my favorite shots from my first glance though the trip. There's just something about the way this beautiful female is glancing out of the frame that just pulls me in.
While reading online about the Kokanee salmon run in Taylor Creek off of Lake Tahoe before our trip, I learned that bears in the area have a distinct taste for trout. In fact, one report said that its not uncommon for bears to catch trout in the creeks, but it was only recently (within the past few years) that select bears started capitilizing on the salmon run. We witnessed this preference first hand with the mother bear that we watched fishing in the creek.
Just before catching this fish, she had a nice sized salmon in her jaws, and she had already eaten many by this point. However, she clearly got excited when she saw the trout and she dropped the salmon without eating it and lunged for this beautiful fish.
She had eaten most of the salmon on the rocks right in the stream, however, with this special prize it appeared that she didn't want to risk losing it back into the water and she quickly carried it up onto the bank before starting to eat. Her cub noticed what she was up to, and he definitely wanted in!
Surprisingly, she was unwilling to share with the cub (at least at the current location) and ripped the fish out of its grasp while it tried desparately to hang on to the tasty meal, and she then carried it further away.
This time she went back up the hillside and out of view of the creek. The cub definitely stayed right behind while she went -- likely hoping for some scraps, and perhaps she decided to share once she was truly away from the chance of losing it back to the creek.
Here's a movie clip taken by my wife of the bear's decision to not eat the trout in the stream. You can see her hesitate at the rock where she was eating salmon, and when the trout really starts moving and she decides to take it to the shore.
