Some mountain lion action

Gringorio · Sep 28, 2021

One thing I do outside of the drone world is maintain a bunch of camera traps for monitoring wildlife. I've done this for work, for non-profits, and for fun for many years now. It's always exciting to see what the camera captures. Here's a recent puma capture from a site in SE Arizona:

eEridani · Sep 28, 2021

Interesting that the moths can see the IR.

Gringorio · Sep 28, 2021

eEridani said:
Interesting that the moths can see the IR.

In that first clip, it's actually a white light camera, thus the moths...

AZDave · Sep 28, 2021

Gringorio said:
One thing I do outside of the drone world is maintain a bunch of camera traps for monitoring wildlife. I've done this for work, for non-profits, and for fun for many years now. It's always exciting to see what the camera captures. Here's a recent puma capture from a site in SE Arizona:

Not only a terrific subject, but that was also very nice editing. Well done!

I also live in SE Arizona (south of Sierra Vista), and while I know for a fact that there are mountain lions in this area I've never managed to see one. My wife has seen a couple of them, though, and two years ago one evening at dusk a mountain lion killed a deer in a deep ravine about 150 feet from my house while I was outside throwing a ball for my dog at the exact same time. I heard the cat snarl when it made the kill, and the next morning we found the remains of the deer.

I have a modest sized goldfish pond on the lot to provide water for the local animals, and late one afternoon the biggest bobcat I've ever seen came up for a drink. It was old, with the skin just hanging off it, and comparing it's size and girth to my 55 pound dog the bobcat must have weighed at least that much. I don't think they are supposed to get that big, but this was definitely a bobcat ... small tufted ears and all. The pond is only about 40 feet from the window we watched it from. I didn't have a camera handy and it didn't stay long enough for me to run and get one.

B52-D · Sep 29, 2021

Gringorio said:
One thing I do outside of the drone world is maintain a bunch of camera traps for monitoring wildlife. I've done this for work, for non-profits, and for fun for many years now. It's always exciting to see what the camera captures. Here's a recent puma capture from a site in SE Arizona:

Great wildlife capture. I can’t believe how long his tail is, looks like 3 feet. He could wack me with his tail and I’d be out for the count. ?
B52-D

AZDave · Sep 29, 2021

B52-D said:
Great wildlife capture. I can’t believe how long his tail is, looks like 3 feet. He could wack me with his tail and I’d be out for the count. ?
B52-D

Mountain lions are incredibly strong. There is a national monument visitor center not too far from my house, and several years ago they set up a night vision video camera to try to catch sight of a bear that had been radiing one of their sheds. Instead they got a video of a mountain lion jumping over a six foot high chain link fence with a full grown deer in its mouth.

eEridani · Sep 29, 2021

AZDave said:
a video of a mountain lion jumping over a six foot high chain link fence with a full grown deer in its mouth.

The really scary part of this is my kitty cat routinely hops a six foot fence.

Gringorio · Oct 1, 2021

AZDave said:
Not only a terrific subject, but that was also very nice editing. Well done!

I also live in SE Arizona (south of Sierra Vista), and while I know for a fact that there are mountain lions in this area I've never managed to see one. My wife has seen a couple of them, though, and two years ago one evening at dusk a mountain lion killed a deer in a deep ravine about 150 feet from my house while I was outside throwing a ball for my dog at the exact same time. I heard the cat snarl when it made the kill, and the next morning we found the remains of the deer.

I have a modest sized goldfish pond on the lot to provide water for the local animals, and late one afternoon the biggest bobcat I've ever seen came up for a drink. It was old, with the skin just hanging off it, and comparing it's size and girth to my 55 pound dog the bobcat must have weighed at least that much. I don't think they are supposed to get that big, but this was definitely a bobcat ... small tufted ears and all. The pond is only about 40 feet from the window we watched it from. I didn't have a camera handy and it didn't stay long enough for me to run and get one.

Sounds like a perfect set up for a trail cam. Despite your obvious awareness of what goes on around your place, you'd be surprised what a trail cam will catch at your pond. I have cams up in the Huachuca's that catch coati, bears, mountain lions, gray fox and more... I bet these critters also visit your pond.

AZDave · Oct 3, 2021

Gringorio said:
Sounds like a perfect set up for a trail cam. Despite your obvious awareness of what goes on around your place, you'd be surprised what a trail cam will catch at your pond. I have cams up in the Huachuca's that catch coati, bears, mountain lions, gray fox and more... I bet these critters also visit your pond.

Actually, I live on the side of the Huachucas right up against the national forest, and although it isn't working right now, for about two years I had a night vision camera pointed at the pond from my deck. The camera has picked up coyotes, gray fox, deer, javelina, skunks, rabbits, feral cats, raccoons (I know there are coatimundi in the area but these were raccoon) ... but so far no mountain lions or bear. It's odd, though, bear have been seen several times both in person and caught on trail cams just down the hill from me. There's a small ravine there that they sometimes seem to travel along, even though a much bigger ravine crosses my lot and would be lot better cover.

I'm sure I've missed someof visitors, though. I stopped using motion triggering of video and pictures because I was swamped with pictures of moths and moving grass. I would just record a full evening of video and scan it the next day at high speed, but that got to be a bit of drudgery after a while.