This morning I crossed paths with a bobcat. I was walking down in the big arroyo near Crazy Ridge, where the sand is damp. It hasn’t rained in weeks and only the shadiest spots in the deepest arroyos hold a last trace of water. Just enough to cast a good footprint:
No nail marks (click to enlarge). Dog and coyote prints show nail marks in front of each toe, whereas cats and bobcats have retractable claws.
Dog/ coyote prints (bottom) and raccoon prints (top) both showing nail marks.
Outside cats don’t live long here in coyote country and I found these several miles from anybody’s property. At least three neighbors have reported seeing bobcats from time to time, usually around dusk. So, I’m voting bobcat.
This wouldn’t be my first:
Look closely…
Yosemite Bobcat!
I crossed paths with this guy on the Yosemite Falls trail in January. After a cold night camping in the snow, we got up early for a hike and were the first on the trail. When I stopped to take off a layer, I saw a tuft of fur not twenty feet off the path. A bobcat! He was taking a nap. I took a couple of quick shots and at the snap of the lens, he opened his blue grey eyes and looked right at me. Then he went back to sleep.
Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America, so high that in winter the water turns to snow on the way down, sifting into a giant pile of powder on the frozen river. By the time we stomped up through knee-deep snow all the way to the thigh-deep summit and slid our way back down again, the cat’s nap was over and he was long gone, a few strands of housecat hair marking his place.
Hopefully I’ll see a desert bobcat out here one of these days. I hear they’re smaller than their mountain relatives. As they say, paths that cross will cross again…
Previous posts on other close animal encounters: Wilding Horses & The Grizz
Travels with the Blonde Coyote 
Great photos and story. That is one pretty (and wild) kitty.
Absolutely beautiful. We’re always hoping to catch one on our trail cams, but haven’t yet.
Nice close-up of the bobcat.
Wow, that is a great shot of the bobcat. And the footprints are beautiful.
cute 🙂
That’s one cute Bobcat!
You did an amazing job!
I grew up near Yosemite and got used to finding big cat prints outside my house all the time (hence my blog name). Luckily I never ran into one. Great pictures!
What a beautiful animal! And wonderful photography!!
He (she? it?) is stunning. Interesting about the nail in the footprints — I had no idea…
Yay body-pillow-sized kitties! >^_^<
Great picture of the bobcat! Such beautiful eyes 🙂
awesome post and beautiful pictures.. 😀
What fantastic images! As a cat owner, it’s especially intriguing to see the wilder (and much, much bigger) cousins of our domesticated friends.
My parents used to threaten us with bobcats. “If you don’t come inside, the bobcats will come out!”
It’s hard to believe we were so afraid. They’re the most adorable predators ever. Nice find!
Wow, great shot! You are lucky, we have bobcats here in Western Washington, but I have never seen one in the wild. I did see a Lynx in Canada once and it was very memorable! Something about their eyes is so haunting.
Fabulous photos- I love the paw prints, very dramatic!
Great picture.. this shot is NatGeo material. 🙂 Awesome post.
Darlene
Lovely!
And what a beautiful animal! =)
So neat to see wildlife in their natural habitat and cool when you can snap a photo:) Congrats on being FP!
Hey thanks everybody! I’m on the road today, driving across the great state of Arizona, and I just turned on my phone to find a bazillion Bobcat emails! Glad you’re all enjoying my supremely lucky moment with that incredible cat! Follow the Blonde Coyote for lots more! 🙂
Wow, that’s a beautiful picture of a gorgeous bobcat. I love the shots of the footprints too. Congrats on freshly pressed and thanks for sharing your great pictures!
Beautiful photos–especially the close-up of the bobcat, but I love the detail of the prints.
Bobcats are so pretty!
Wow ! thats a great picture of the cat. Glad I found your blog on google.
Wow, beautiful picture, sent a tingle down my spine…
This is so incredibly cute! Thank you. You made me smile at work in TX.
I loved reading the story of how you came across the Bobcat. I’ve never seen/heard of one before and it is a very beautiful creature. Stunning photographs, and I love how the Bobcat is somewhat ‘posing’ in it’s relaxed state in the last photo. ^__^
Love the print shots! And LOVE the Bob! So beautiful, what a fabulous healthy specimen and how lucky you were to see it in it’s natural habitat!
great post. Bobcats are awesome
What beautiful creatures. I love it that you took pictures of the footprints & show so clearly how to distinguish a bobcat’s from a dog’s or a coyote’s. We have bobcats here in western Massachusetts, sometimes surprisingly close to towns. I’m going to have to start following your site!
You might be interested in our blog about geology & footprints, particularly the most recent post from today (paleoartist Will Sillin) and from a couple of weeks ago, Ichnofossils in the Making. http://jurassicroadshow.wordpress.com/
Thanks Sarah! I’m a huge geology buff. Right now a post about dinosaur footprints is at the top of my blogging to do list!
The cat is gorgeous!
Beautiful! Wild (big) cats are beautiful and fascinating. I bet it was an exhilarating moment!
Amanda
http://www.bullfrogsandbulldogs.com/
Yes, it was quite the start to an amazing hike! I’m just glad I remembered how to work my camera! 🙂
So sweet!!! Thank you for sharing!
He’s beautiful.
– MJ
I love photographs of animals. Congrats on making the Freshly Pressed.
The shot of the bobcat camouflaged in the brush was wonderful; like a “Where’s Waldo?” nature game.
I was surprised at how much the bobcat looked like a house pet. Beautiful!
Ronnie
Isn’t that the cat that got lost in JFK?
Beautiful pics!
very cool! some bobcats and cougars were recently spotted in iowa…and i’m not talking machinery and hot older women. i guess some hunters have seen some really large and in charge cats. i’d wet my pants.
http://www.icouldntmakethisshitup.wordpress.com
Wow, cougars in Iowa!!
He is GORGEOUS! Glad I stumbled upon your blog; I’ll be following you in your adventures! 🙂
Thanks Nicole! Plenty more where that came from…
Beautiful animal, I would give a lot to see such an amazing animal. 🙂
It pays to get up early! We were the first on the trail that day. I doubt we would have seen him if we had slept in.
Beautiful shots and I’m impressed you took pictures. Recently, I may have encountered either a bobcat or mountain lion, just saw glowing eyes, felt stalked, and later heard something jump. If it was a mountain lion, I’d probably be dead, so I’m guessing it was a bobcat. When you’re as close as you were, are you afraid of them?
No I wasn’t afraid of the bobcat, but I did once encounter a mountain lion and it was pretty terrifying. My dog Bowie treed a lion right next to my cabin when I was living way out in the woods in Oregon. I’m sure he was stalking us. He was raging, spitting mad and when I called Bowie back inside the cat jumped down and ran back into the woods. After that I stopped leaving my doors open. Wild America!
Great shot, beautiful animal! Thanks for a great post!
http://bearcat8.wordpress.com/
Such an amazing photo, cute animal
Wow! What a moment you captured! Was it one of those moments where the bobcat was more afraid of you than you were of it? Were you even the least bit concerned?! He (or she) had an incredible coat, it was just beautiful!
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I don’t think there was any fear between us. I was calm and he was calm and I was honored he let me take his picture. Bobcats are not to fear.
It looks like a really big kittycat
My children plan to catch a ‘wildcat’ when we go on holiday to Slovenia at Christmas. Last year, he eluded their attempts to trap him with a piece of bread tied to some string. (wonder why…) This year, they are already drawing up plans for an altogether more complex trap, including a hole and sardines. Just might work!!
Haha that’s great. I once spent a childhood summer rigging a trap to catch a rabbit. The bait, no matter what it was, always disappeared but I never caught anything. Looking back, I’m sure my dad was springing the trap, egging us along.
Very beautiful ! 🙂
Aww! I have never seen a bobcat in real life before, not even at the zoo because they are always hiding inside their man-penned habitats. It must be nice to see them in their natural home. =)
Yeah they’re usually pretty shy creatures. I was amazed this one didn’t run away. I’m sure he heard us coming up the trail!
Wow – very cool. I am a huge fan of cats – the cute cuddly ones in my house to the big wild cats. Have never seen one in the wild – very cool!
We have lots of bobcats in Finland, but I don’t really like ’em. They are beautiful, but then we can’t let our cats go outside for the night 😦
Yeah New Mexico isn’t good house cat country either. The coyotes are the big problem here!
That’s so epic!!! Bobcats are my fav. animal!
very nice and beatifull cat..
I want to pet one!
Yeah they look so soft and fluffy! I think you’d probably get the teeth though!
Great pics! Those are some big foot prints!
Aweeee, so cute! Could be my pet…..NOT!
Haha yeah, bobcats are beautiful, but I don’t think they make very good pets! Maybe adopt a Maine coon cat? They’re similarly fluffy!
What a neat cat! So amazing that you could just stumble on him and actually get a few pictures and he didn’t just run off right away. That’s always my problem with the animals I see on my hikes. They run off before I get a single shot.
Wow, great photos. I was intrigued by how much this cat looks like a lynx rather than a bobcat. Lynx aren’t known to inhabit Yosemite, but this cat shows a largely grayish and unspotted fur, as well as pretty well developed ear tufts. Apparently, the variability in both species makes identification of some individuals difficult, and the best way to tell them apart is by looking at the tail tip: fully black in lynx and black only on top in bobcat. As luck would have it, your photo doesn’t show the tip of the tail.
I’m thinking that this is indeed a bobcat, but just one that looks really lynxy!
Hi Tim! Yes, when I saw the cat, I wondered if it might have been a lynx because it seemed like quite a large bobcat. I asked a Yosemite park ranger and showed him the photos and he assured me it was definitely a bobcat. Seeing a lynx would be incredible! Someday, I hope!
very nice
Beautiful shot!!! We got up close with some lions when we were on safari in Africa last year. It’s funny how those predator cats look so cute but you know that they’d totally rip you up if you got too close 😀
Cute! Congrats for being on FP!
Bobcats are gorgeous creatures. I’ve only seen one in the wild once! Great shots!
Que lindo gatito! Me encanta. (Pretty cat I love it!)
These are great. What lens did you use for the close up. I have a 55-250 mm and I love taking close ups from far away.
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so close bobcat shot, good job.
Love the paw prints!
Interesting….great pics.
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Great Blog i come again to your blog …..:)
see this
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Yosemite Bobcat is very cute!!!!!
Interesting blog, i’ll come back to read you and to see your photos.
Bye bye and good afternoon.
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