Nothing says spring like waking up in late April to the sound of the UDOT snowplow out on the highway. I’m hoping that’s the last snow of last winter, and not the first snow of next winter. It would be terrible to have missed summer. The only good thing about the snow is that it covered the mud for a few hours and made it possible to check around my yard for bobcat tracks.
All winter long, I’ve been seeing bobcat tracks in the yard and up and down the lane between the house and the highway. At first I didn’t know what they were, and assumed that a neighbor’s smaller dog was stopping in for a visit. But then one day some motion outside the window caught my eye, and I saw the bobcat right in the backyard. It was stalking something in the trees, and moved across the yard as regally as a lion. I got a couple of pretty good pictures through the window.
A few weeks later, I saw it again. My dog sleeps in a little alcove at the top of the stairs. Normally, I have to wake her up in the morning. So it was a little unusual to find her sitting up, calmly watching something through the window. At first I saw what appeared to be an injured bird on the ground. It was big, some kind of raptor, though I couldn’t tell what. Then another bird flew down and appeared to be trying to shield it. The second bird was flapping its wings and spreading them out to make itself look as big as possible. A dozen magpies were squawking in the trees around it.
Then the bobcat stepped out of the woods. It snatched the injured bird in its jaws and there was an explosion of feathers. In short order, it plucked the bird and settled in for a good meal. We had breakfast together – me with a bowl of cornflakes and the bobcat with the bird. The dog was interested, but didn’t react other than watching quietly out the window. No bark, no growl, just sitting there enjoying the show. After probably 15 minutes, the bobcat picked up the carcass and vanished back into the woods. I guess it was saving the rest for later.
Last week, I was walking out to the mailbox and glanced into the woods and saw it again. It was lounging in the sun. This was some serious cat lounging. It was on its side, fully stretched out, belly to the sun. Like a house cat on the back of the couch, it was sprawled out on the roof of the “log fort.” The log fort is a tiny log cabin that my brother and I built many years ago when our parents decided that it was OK for us to play with chain saws. Most of the current crop of little kids is afraid to venture into the woods behind the house. So the log fort has been slowly rotting into the ground for 40 years or so. The roof has more or less caved in, and it takes a little imagination to recognize it as an actual structure.
As best I can tell, the bobcat has tidied it up and moved in. I poked around the place a little. There was a pile of feathers that matched the bird I watched it eat. There were marmot remains and some little piles of bones and fur on the ground. The bobcat wasn’t just passing through; it has set up shop right there in the back yard.
So far, I don’t think there are kittens. I peeked in the window of the little cabin and could see most of the floor, and there was nobody home. But I have to confess that I didn’t want to stick my head all the way through the little window to check. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. Maybe if there isn’t a litter of kittens involved, it will move back up the canyon as the snow melts.
My dog is pretty strange about her food. Some days she gulps a whole bowl down; other days she isn’t interested. But I noticed over the winter that she seemed to be eating a lot more than usual, though not getting fat. If I left the bowl of dog food on the front porch in the morning, it would always be empty when I got home. But when I fed the dog on the upper deck, or in the kitchen, she didn’t seem so hungry. A bowl of food could last a couple of days.
Apparently she’s been sharing it with the bobcat. I have to admit that my dog is not the sharpest tool in the shed. She’s a huge mutt, close to 100 pounds, and just assumes that anything with four legs was put on earth to play with her. Over the years, her circle of friends has included skunks, raccoons, horses, and any other dog she can find. And now a bobcat. I’ve never seen them playing together, but since the dog dish is only out during daylight hours, I have to assume the dog and the bobcat have met. When she sniffs the cat tracks, she wags her tail.
A bobcat isn’t a mountain lion. It’s about like a mid-size lab, although I suspect that shaved clean it would be skinny like a border collie. This one is pretty big, but I’d be surprised if it weighs 50 pounds. I’m not too worried about having it leap out of a tree and take me down like a lion on a zebra on the Serengeti. My sister is convinced that it will drag one of her grandkids off for dinner, but I really think that’s unlikely. The grandkids travel in packs. They are dangerous when provoked. The bobcat would come out on the losing end of that contest.
But all the same, I find myself keeping a careful eye on the woods.
Tom Clyde served as Park City attorney in the 1980s and is the author of “More Dogs On Main Street.” He has been a columnist at The Park Record for nearly 20 years.