(The Hunter)
I actually took these shots back in late summer, but I’m just now getting around to posting them. I know the quality of the shot above was not so great, but it’s about the best I could manage from a distance with my point-and-shoot. But I feel lucky to have gotten that—after all, it’s not every day you see a bobcat in your backyard.
We had just sat down to supper, and Blue Ridge Blue Collar Man was gazing out the sliding glass doors.
“Wow,” he said. “Look at that.”
Now, here’s the thing about Blue Ridge Blue Collar Man—if he sees something and wants to call your attention to it, whether it be a common house finch or say maybe…an ivory-billed woodpecker…his response is pretty much the same.
Not “Wow, look at that common house finch!” or “Wow, look at that ivory-billed woodpecker!” Nope. Just “Wow, look at that.” So, when you look where his finger’s pointing, it’s sometimes hard to figure out just what he’s seeing or whether it’s actually worth turning your head for. I mean, seriously…if he were to see a pterodactyl perched on our barbed wire fence post watching a herd of stegosaurus graze in the pasture, I’m sure he’d nonchalantly say, “Wow, look at that.”
Anyway, when he said that, I rather languidly looked outside, but saw nothing but the usual field full of wildflowers.
“Umm…what?” I said. “I don’t see anything.”
“Over there—by the oak tree,” he said, pointing in the direction of about ten different oak trees. We have nothing BUT oak trees in our back field.
I looked again, but still saw nothing. Rather irritably, I said, “Could you perhaps give me a hint as to what I’m looking for?”
“A bobcat. It’s a bobcat.”
I jumped up then. “A bobcat?” I ran to get my camera and peered out the back door. Then, I finally saw him–a gorgeous wildcat–crouching in the weeds in the pasture. And I knew why he was here.
It was the bumper crop of bunnies we had this year. They bred like…well…rabbits, and every time we stepped outside, there would be bunnies cavorting everywhere in the grass, apparently blissfully unaware of the fact that danger lurked nearby.
He was a beautiful bobcat, and I badly wanted a better photograph than the smeary shots I could get through the window of the back door. So, trying to be stealthy as a cat, I slowly opened the door and stepped out. He looked up and our eyes locked. But he didn’t move. He just gazed coolly and steadily at me, perhaps sizing up my potential as tasty prey, and I gazed back, transfixed. I was able to get off a couple of shots before I finally sent him bounding back into the forest when I tried to get a little closer.
But, for a moment, my heart beat a little faster, and so, I’m sure, did his. But not as fast as the hearts of all the poor little frightened bunnies in the grass.
(The Hunted)