I wish that I had a picture but we will have to make do with a description. It was several weeks back when I first saw, the cat, a furtive glance to the left while I was driving, near the Pebbles old stone house in the Glen. Not much of a visual impression, really. It was very dark and I watched the feline scurry across and then turn to look at me. It was a young cat to be sure, fairly small, but the grapefruit sized head definitely larger than a house cat.
It all happened so fast, such a flash really. Did it have a tail or not? I just didn't know. I have seen about 10 to 12 bobcats in the thirty one years that I have lived in and just over the canyon. Once saw a mom, with three kittens in tow at the base of Gavilan Mountain. This cat was either a large bobcat or a small cougar.
We saw three or four cougar last year. One ran in front of Leslie and I driving on the high canyon road into our valley. We saw him two days in a row. Very dark. Cats are like hawks they come in a much broader color range than the city dweller might realize. I have seen them a light fawn color and a mountain lion I once saw many years ago in Del Dios was near black. Last year's cougar jumped the neighbors fence and ate his goat. We had a cat disappear.
We know our cats pretty well. What was strange about the cat from the other week was that in the quick glance it seemed to not have a tail but it also had no spots.
The next day the cat ran in front of the car in broad daylight. No camera so you will just have to take my word. He was a bobcat with a white tuft under that long bobbed tail. And he had no spots, something I have never seen before on a bobcat. A beautiful rich and dark coat. One of the joys of living in the country. I was lucky to see he or she in the same spot two days in a row. Hope it happens again.
