While recovering from knee surgery Jan. 4, 2006, I was taking a little hike around the "Migrants Mile" nature trail at Quivira NWR and came upon what first appeared to be a squirrel nest of leaves in a tree. Upon closer inspection with my 100-400 IS lens, I found this:

Nice! I did the same thing once with a porcupine. I thought it was some kind of nest until I walked up on it and its yellow teeth.

Nice shot.
Bryan

Nice shot,,Did you kill him?

BlasR

Hope you don't mind I took a stab at tweaking the color in photoshop.

I have a couple of bird images which appear to be almost exactly the same light and positioning and was working on them. I saw yours and couldn't help trying the same thing on it.

Nice catch... I've never seen a bobcat in the wild.

congratz

Fantastic. I have never seen one so clearly. There is something pleasantly menacing in the look the cat is giving you.....

Why would you want to kill it? Are they a problem in your location?

Definitely a shot to be proud of (that's definitely, not definately). We don't have these creatures in Australia, so when I clicked on the thread, I expected to see a mini excavator (which we call bobcats in Oz).

You've captured the twinkle in the eye, but I can't say I feel anything particularly menacing about this cat, as someone suggested, but 'pleasantly menacing' (?).... that's definitely an oxymoron.

As Ben has pointed out, the image could have done with a 'levels' adjustment.

I too momentarily expected to see a picture of someone on small machinery at an escavation site....especially since one is working around here just on dawn at the moment, preparing my new orchard.
I love the facial features and the way the branches complement the lines on its' face.
Thanks.

Jule,
Can we expect to see some compositionally esthetic shots of delicious nectarines and custard apples in the near future?

Hehe.. we call the Excavators Bobcats here in the US too... but I never expected to see a picture of an Excavator on this site.

It is a special picture. I know the hard core nature photographers who camp out for months in national parks get to see animals like this but for the rest of us bobcats are exceedingly rare. I'd be very happy to see one even if I didn't manage to photograph it.

Deer have become very common here in New England and I am starting to spot Coyotes lately, but I have yet to get a chance to try and photograph one as they have all been sightings in the middle of night.

I am not messing around with any Coyotes either to get a picture. At least Bobcats don't travel in packs!

Hey, Ben,

There are bobcats here in Massachusetts, and I did see one once, in Western Mass. many years ago, in broad daylight on a little dirt road. No camera with me, of course, but it was exciting to see. They are very shy and seldom seen even where they live.

Eric (also in MA)

hmmm...only dirt at present, but I do have an existing orchard with wonderful fruits and nuts which I have never thought about doing any compositionally aesthetic images of. No nectarines though. Fruit fly are a big problem and I am a bit of a greenie and don't use sprays....so citrus, pecans, macadamias, jaboticabas and avocadoes will be on the 'still life' photographic menu over the coming seasons. Thanks Ray for the challenge...lol..

Here’s a photo from May of 2000 that I just got around to scanning. This is a wild lynx in Yosemite National Park. The lynx appeared to be accustomed to the presence of humans. After slowly following it for about a half mile, it stopped to rest. I slowly approached to within about 20 or 30 feet, and then lay on the ground to get an eye level view of the lynx. It lay by me for about 15 minutes and appeared not to be the least disturbed by my presence. Click to view attachment

Huh???????????????????????????

Shame those thumbnails (except the first) show nothing but ascii . . .

I get the ascii garbiling too... I'm using the latest version of FireFox (1.5.0.4)

IE works fine.

We're looking at the problems with the attachments, will be fixed ASAP with any luck!

Mark

I saw one a few years ago in broad daylight, crossing a road in Columbia County, NY (a few miles from Mass.). It had much longer hair than the one in the OP's image, though. Of course, my camera was in the trunk.

Are embedded images OK in these forums? I notice that most people use attachments, but attachments are not working right now.

Cats are my favourite. Wild ones best of all. I encountered one at 6AM once while driving. I stopped to watch him and was so captivated I couldn't be bothered changing lenses to try and photograph him. I just sat, transfixed. He walked slowly across the road, paused once, gave me a long look and disappeared into the forest. Magic!

Thanks for the great pix, guys.

Peter

Didn't you attempt to stroke and tickle him? Cats are such affectionate creatures .

Click to view attachment

Darn! I wish thumbnailed images loaded properly. That looks like a goodie.

I did once get to scratch a tiger behind the ears. Delicious! For me and the tiger.

What's different about my system, I wonder. I've never experienced any trouble enlarging thumbnails on this site.

Ray,

Are you by any chance using Micro$oft's Internet Explorer? That seems to interpret the thumbnails correctly, but many of us won't use it for security reasons.

Eric

Eric,
That must be the reason. I'm using Internet Explorer ....Oops! Now I've just exposed myself to a security attack .

From what I understand, IE displays the images correctly in error. The images are mis-identified on the server as html, so Firefox and others display them as html, so their text charachters show instead of the image. IE looks inside the files, and discovers they are JPEGs and displays them as such. Of course, that's the kind of things that cause security leaks. Imagine if it was an EXE, and IE executed it!

That seems a very sensible thing to do. Are you implying that viruses and trojan horses can be disguised as jpegs?

Yes, they can, and sometimes are. But almost all known viruses and trojan horses are aimed at the PC world, so they won't run on Macs.

Yes, I admit I'm using a PC, so, as you said, "Oops! Now I've just exposed myself to a security attack .

Eric

They are not exceptionally large cats but oh they are quite menacing if they get cornered and feel threatened. I would not want one to get a hold of me.

Looks like he also thought there was a squirrel nest there!
He needs your 100-400 IS lens too . . .

So it looks like Jerry is another of Bill's lock-in victims!

Stupid assholes are everywhere, jule!

They just look like little baby tigers to me! You mean, you wouldn't like to get hold of one, like this?

Click to view attachment

Ray,
1) that thumbnail only works in InternetExplorer. Not in Safari, FireFox, Deerpark, or Flock. I'm not even gonna bother testing it in other browsers. So you're locked in (-to IE/Windows). And consequently you lock out all non-IE-users.
2) the guy in that photo demonstrates the stupidest way possible to grip an upset cat. I wouldn't be surprised if he is still recovering from what happened immediately after that pic was taken . . .

Hasn't that situation been fixed yet? I don't have any problem with Internet Explorer, security or otherwise, but I'd be interested in posting full size images directly as you've done with the pussy cat's face, just so people can appreciate my fine photos, you understand. Don't want to lock anyone out .

Others do have a problem with you using IE though, Ray. As demonstrated.

That's simple: upload your picture (max. 700 pixels wide) to Photobucket.com, FlickR.com, or another such service, copy the 'img' tag, and paste it in your reply on the board. And, Hey! Presto! you got a big pic in your reply!

You will as long as you keep using IE and Windows!

One can use Windows, as long as your browser is either Opera, Firefox, or Netscape 8. All of those display embedded images just fine. I generally glance at the thumbnails that IE users still insert, and only if the thumbnail looks absolutely entrancing will I employ one of the laborious work-arounds (discussed in other threads here) to see the enlarged image.

I do wish the thumbnail feature would be fixed, but it's now almost half a year since it first happened, and no fix has been announced. Until it is fixed (if ever), it is indeed a kindness to the rest of us to use embedded images rather than thumbnails.

Eric

Hmm! I'm having a bit of trouble posting this full size image. Let's have another go.