Kat's Mountain Lion Photos (Trail Camera Photography)

261 pictures and a bunch of videos of the puma coming back to eat.
Here is one

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Way to go, Kat! Good job!

Literally hundreds of pictures and video, but this one is pretty special for a night time one.

Maybe you are great at selecting sites, but I never would have guessed that "random" placements would ever get so much point blank activity. Guess maybe there is a whole world seething right under our noses that just slips out of view every time we walk by.

I'm formulating a theory that trailcams actually attract animal activity. :-)

Mark,
I had posted a picture of the killed deer I found on Saturday. Then I placed my cameras on it and went back every day to move them as every night the mountain lion moved it a few feet. So it is not activity that just happens in front of the camera.
Other good pictures I have gotten were because I spent a lot of time studying the trails and how animals climb up from the creek to the ridge.
All that and luck. But no. Trail cameras do not attract activity, on the contrary.

There has been no random placement of cameras, that's for sure. If you knew how much time I have invested into this you would not be saying that. I find your post a bit of a put down.

Kat,
Thanks for sharing your passion and expertise in using these cameras, but I wonder if I'm the only one worried for you. Especially in the context of visiting a kill repeatedly. The lions may be familiar with your smells on the cameras and walking scent on trails by now, hopefully not losing their natural fear of you. Do you visit that kill alone to move the camera? Safety in numbers, blah bla

I know you wear that hat with eyes, but in my book this latest round of images is of higher risk to you than the others. Again, my opinion shared with utmost respect and surely something you've given tons more thought to than the rest of us, but something to think about all the while

Kevin, that is a fair point there and thanks for caring.
This did feel a bit more sketchy than usual and I have been more careful. I was walking with my dog when we found the kill around noon on Saturday. Middle of the day seems like the safest time of day. I took my dog with me on subsequent visits and instead of walking I rode my little Honda up to the kill. I had a knife and a screeching mace in hand.
My partner has not been very happy with me about this….but I think I am being smart about it. Still made me nervous but I think the bit of fear is healthy in this case.

Kat,

As I told you in response to your pm, NOT intended by any stretch of the imagination as a put down. Not sure how you got that. Perhaps just my lame way of expressing my amazement at how many good picture you got.

I have not been reading everything in this the thread that avidly, just responding to the nice pictures, so I may have missed the part where you explained all the stuff you do, and how much work you put into it, but even without such an explanation I assumed you knew what you were doing and this was a major project for you.

Mark, maybe you did not intend it as a put down, but referring to "random placement" of cameras getting this kind of pictures really dismissed the amount of work and thought I put into it. People that know me also know that I am determined to a fault and put a tremendous amount of work into things that interest me. I have been lucky, that is true, but nothing I have done here with my cameras has been random.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Yeah, I have to admit that that wasn't too clear. It wasn't meant at ALL as disparagement. And BTW the silly post about the Eagle just came from me trying to imagine what the proud eagle would think if he knew he got secretly photographed during an awkward moment – wildlife paparazzi style – with his "pants down".

What I could/should have said "random" critter walking by doing something interesting. Yeah, I see how in this case the eagle was a bonus from the carcass. I wanted to ask a while back was if you saw the carcass first and planted the camera, but that was before you posted the most amazing pic so far the ML is dragging the carcass into view.

Anyway, so it at least looks like you caught the ML right after the kill! Very hard to plan that! Anyway, you should submit it some places because you are bound to win some awards for it – much better the the award-wining camera trap one someone posted IMO. That one was cool, but looks a bit like a diorama.

Thanks Mark.
The picture of the lion with the deer by the throat is a series of over 100 pictures , before he dragged it off camera. I had put the camera there after he had moved the deer the previous night. So each of the four nights started with on camera footage and a bunch of lost footage after he moved it. For every good pictures there are many mediocre ones and lots more missed ones.

Here is a section of the photos that caught that one I posted earlier.
Many more preceding this is the lion walking up, eating while sitting, then lying down , then these

And then a few more with it just barely visible and then off camera. Every night it started nice and central and them moved off while eating and playing with it. I could have moved the camera further away but not gotten as nice a shots.

Wow, you're getting some great stuff! But do be careful; we've only just recently become friends and I'd hate to lose you. Don't go out like Tim Treadwell….

It might be just me, but I think the strips themselves might be interesting as well. I know you might not want to keep every frame, but a set of shots lined up like this to tell a story over time might be interesting. I could see the sequence on an art gallery wall, for instance. Obviously you can't reproduce the full color camera trap, but a flash would just scare it away. But you have this unique ability to document its behavior.

For example, I once read a book about mountain lions in Arizona, and from that I always understood they hid the carcass under a bush, or semi buried to come back to for several days. This seems a bit different. Maybe it is it cold and wet instead of hot and dry its worth it to leave it more out in the open. And then there is the "playing" part.

Edit: was just looking for it and I think it was this one: "Soul Among Lions", Harley Shaw.

On top of the fact that this seem like the only way to get information about what the ML does when no one is around, I'm guessing people who study MLs in the area would be interested.

By any chance do you know if this in one of your "regular visitors" from before?

Daniel….I know about Timothy and I told myself at the beginning of this adventure that I would not follow his footsteps, but he was a fool, really. :)

I will look that up Mark.
I am learning a lot about them really. The first night when he killed the deer he mainly just ate the heart and the liver and put the stomach to the side . The second night he ate some other soft tissues and the meaty legs and hind quarters. The third night he continues with the meatier parts and everything else that was getting ripe. That night he came back four times. The last night was all about the brain, really. I had read that the heart went first because of the iron. Then think it ate what might spoil first.
I have stitched some of the series together as in a movie and it tells a lot.

This is what he looked like the third night when he ate the most

I think this is not the young one I have a lot of pictures of, but I am not sure.

This one took over an hour nap by the camera. The best camera spot I have found…..right where they climb up from the creek to the ridge . Lots of scat and tracks indicated a good traffic area

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"This one took over an hour nap by the camera."

Maybe the catnip is working. You already know those botanicals.

–B.G.–

:) Bob.
I added some pictures since you just posted..

Excellent. The next to last one shows the cat doing the yoga position called the downward dog. Somehow that is just wrong.

–B.G.–

This stretch makes me appreciate the huge paws and massive legs.

Kat, you really found a good spot. I'm guessing there are a Lot of jealous researchers out there.

Keep it up.

Thanks.

Yup.
Two days ago I got a few (bad) pictures of a collared/tracked male that roams the area. First time I got him on camera.
Last night a new to me lion came by at 8:30 pm. At first I thought it was the same young one I get all the time, but looking closer this one is more muscular but mainly, it has a cut on it's left ear ( look to your right). The younger ( female??) as of last week did not have any cuts on her left ear, only a small one on the right ear.
My guess is the resident female is ready and the males are coming around.
I have cameras up top, but I will them alone for at least a week and then head up and see. The one from last night and the other male were both heading to the ridge, but two different ways.
Exciting!

And this one

Here are a few recent ones. I have plenty of nighttime shots from behind. Need two cameras at each location ;)

This is the same trail, same angle, different day. The largest and most ragged of the bobcats compared to the stocky male.

A beautiful Kestrel

The resident female heading up the hill

A foggy mugshot

Another bobcat

Three different bobcats. The first one has long untattered ears . The middle one is the chubbiest, with smaller, rounder ears. The third has long, battlefield ears

A fawn with mom..

Fantastic stuff. Thanks for sharing all these with us, Kat.

If you hadn't have taken those pictures, would you have thought there were no Cougars or Bobcats there? They seem to normally be good at hiding from us.