I was so proud of myself recently. If you’re a reader of the blog, you’ll recall that I got some sweet bobcat pictures recently. People said nice things about me, and I basically felt good about myself.

bobcat kitten

But some people just have to go and ruin the fun, doing whatever it takes to crush the competition. My mother’s been a contractor at the local air force base in her town, helping with various bird related surveys. And low and behold, it seems a mother bobcat got a little too used to people and decided to take up residence near the hospital. Naturally this produced some good opportunities for pictures, and she even got an entire photo gallery of bobcat kittens in the trees! She also has video of the kittens being captured by a wildlife rehabilitator. The sweet cute little kittens become roaring lions as they’re being moved to the cage. If she ever posts it, I’ll be sure to link to it.

How, I ask you, am I supposed to compete with that? Nobody can compete with multiple bobcat kittens.

It’s time for the real deal. A cat that actually has claws. Move over Bruce. There’s a new king of the jungle (or at least west Texas mesquite scrub).

This is Lynx rufus, commonly known as the bobcat. Last week, I was out shooting pictures of prairie dogs at our local state park. One of the little turds poked his head up out of his hole and started yapping like a French poodle. Now this both confused and annoyed me because I’d been there for 30 minutes, and he hadn’t really protested my presence until just now. Little did I know he wasn’t protesting me at all.

I looked up to see a real cat walking out of the woods onto the edge of the prairie dog town. All I could think at the moment was don’t screw it up. Get the pictures. Though the light wasn’t perfect and the cat was a little distant, I sure was glad to have my camera ready.