Every once in a while something will happen that shouldnt happen ending up in a cool result... rarely several things will happen consecutively none of which should have happened which culminate in a cool result .. this was one of those rare instances...
So I get a call from a friend who lives about 120km SE of me telling me he has seen some unusually large paw prints of late in the snow around his barn. He is not that much into wildlife so I took it for granted by paw prints he probably meant foot prints and it was more than likely a fox or coyote seeing paw to me means some form of cat with retractable claws... I decided to take a drive that way seeing I was bored and about 5km before his house down a grid road there was an eruption of small birds maybe 100 meters in fron of me and behind a snowbank. I drive a standard so what I always do when something like this happens is turn off the car right away and coast in hoping not to scare off whatever it may be. I had the passenger window down and the camera out the window ready for what was to come when just then there was a small gap in the snowbank and this is what I saw...
1) although we get cougar (mountain lion) sitings once every few years up here this animal is not common to here and shouldn`t be here
2) Although they are opportunistic feeders they usually do not hunt small birds (ironically this was a pine grosbeak he killed ... I had been photographing these birds on 2 outings in the past as they are a winter migrant here from the arctic) so he really shouldnt have been hunting these unless he was really hungry..
3) When in the open they are usually very shy creatures and as such are rarely seen in the open like this.
4) And lastly he should have taken off like a bolt when he spotted me yet after seeing me he made sure his kill was dead before dashing off with it...
Like I said.. lots of rare or uncommon things that really should not have happened yet they did and it resulted in this... the only thing I could have asked for was some direct sun instead of the shade and a chance to completely stop the car to reduce shake but I will take this shot any day
I did get a few more but they all have some blur or odd angles to them as the car was still in motion during the entire burst I took.
Although I have seen several cougars in the rockies before they were only fleeting glimpses at a great distance so this was definately a special moment to have gotten this close before he ran.... about 8 meters I would say
Im sure with a bit of editing I can get this pic to "pop" a bit more
On a side note it is amazing how big these cats really are when you get close to them... I now totally understand how they can take down humans so easily the odd time that it does happen.
This was also one of the rare times that the thought of getting out of my car NEVER crossed my mind
I did contact the wildlife officials and they are now looking for it to relocate it to where it belongs before some farmer shoots it.
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...yup.. bunch of rednecks up here... they kill about 5000 a year from what I hear.. the first year they did it over 60,000 were killed.... and they are still everywhere but as I have mentioned.. very shy and you really only see em at night after dark or at first light. I know we have at least 1 one on my 8o acres as I also have quite a few ruffed grouse on my land and quite regularly I find a grouse kill.. when I find em in the winter there are always coyote tracks leading to and away from the kill. But in almost a year now I have only got a glance of it 3 times.
