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close encounters of the feline kind
Posted By: foxglove, 06-04-2007, 09:51 AM

Some of you may have seen the photos I posted from my new Sigma 17-70, one of which was this:


Four days later, we went for a walk on the dykelands near our house. It's a five to ten minute walk to the road onto the dykes. As we approached the dykes, we saw this:


We both froze with our mouths hanging open, and then I obviously fumbled my camera bag open and started taking pictures. This is a 100% crop at 70mm, I let it AF and obviously I need to learn how to use AF properly! The animal turned to follow the top of the bank, and it became obvious what it was:


Yup, a bobcat. I've seen its tracks in the area before, including in our back yard. There was a damp spot where the road dips, so we checked for tracks. I'm pretty sure this is the bobcat's track:


Note the dime for scale, same as the track we saw hiking in the woods. I took these into an image analysis program (yes, I'm that nerdy) and measured them as well as I could. The dime is about 18mm, which makes the bobcat print almost exactly 5cm wide and long, and the other track about 7cm by 8cm. Clearly, whatever made the tracks we saw in the woods was not a bobcat!

There have been many unconfirmed sightings of cougars in Nova Scotia, and DNA evidence of cougars in Fundy National Park (150 km away from where we were hiking, roughly) but I'm still not entirely convinced. But it was pretty neat to see the bobcat at such close range (probably 150 - 200 metres/yards) and now I can at least compare the prints! What do you folks think? Anyone familiar with cougar tracks?

Julie
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06-04-2007, 04:13 PM   #2
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Quite an encounter there for sure. Years ago as a kid I lived in NS (Greenwood) and remember up around my Gramma's Cottage (near Peggys Cove ) seeing mountain lions and cougar tracks. I can imagine how it felt ...excitment , fear ...let you know you were alive eh
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