Good morning, Mr. Lynx

How cool is this!

This may be the first lynx ever photographed on one of my trail cams. It was taken this morning. I have photographed and filmed lynx with a standard camera in the past but not with a trail camera. Part of the reason for that is that these cats don't usually follow trails. Rather, they hunt along edges of brush where their prey, snowshoe hares, like to live.
This is the third lynx I have seen this early winter. The other two I saw on the road which, frankly, is the most likely place to see one.
There is a great lynx story this month in our Nolalu newsletter, the Grassroots, from local writer Leo Hunnako. It recalls an incident a year ago where a local man was sitting in a ground blind while hunting deer. He was sitting as motionless as possible when he felt what appeared to be an insect on his neck. Turning his head slowly so as not to scare any deer that happened to be looking, he came face-to-face with a lynx. It had been the lynx's whiskers brushing against his neck that he mistook for bugs.
He kept his cool and the lynx eventually left.
Lynx are as silent as owls. They have fluffy feet that keep them on top of the snow in winter but which also don't make any noise, even on leaves.
Like all cats, they are curious and it can be unnerving to have them walk right up to you although the case above would be the ultimate test.