Mountain Lion!
Yesterday I took part in the annual Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society's Bird-a-thon Fundraiser. For the third time in the last four years, I was part of the team organized by Bob Hirt, known as The Rock Wrens. This year, Bob had suffered a health set-back that made him incapable of doing the morning's owling, so Calvin Lou and I went up alone to Monte Bello. Walking along the Canyon Trail, entering a wooded portion shortly southwest of the .5 mile sign, I heard some leaves rustling, as if there was a large mammal nearby. Fully expecting a deer, I turned my flashlight in that direction. Quickly - and yet, somehow, time froze then, too - I saw it was a cat - flat nose and face, big eyes staring at me from about 25 yards away (at most). Then I saw the tail. Wow! I turned to Calvin (big mistake, I know, to turn away from a predator) to alert him, but when we turned back, the cat was gone. Most likely it had slunk away the moment it saw my attention swerve, but we couldn't rule out that it had climbed a tree and could be above us. So we talked loudly, made ourselves look large, and walked out to the open area (walking backwards and not running). Wow!
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That was an exciting observation. I have only seen a mountain llion once, while driving at night in central BC. I bet in my years of walking that a number of mountain lions have seen me.
I had waited a long long time to observe one in the wild; I felt almost unnaturally calm when it finally did happen. But I treasure that brief eyelock!
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