Mountain Lions
Camera traps are an incredible tool, one that I’m learning to use more and more in my wildlife photography. A camera trap involves a DSLR camera, an infrared motion sensor, and external flashes to take images of wildlife remotely. My first project with camera traps has been photographing mountain lions! I started on the Front Range of Colorado, spending a winter tracking and learning about the cats that live in this region. The star of the show is a dominant male that I’ve named “Notch” for the noticeable scar on his right ear.
In addition to the high quality images you just saw, I collected a lot of great video with trail cameras! One of the most exciting things I found while tracking was a two week old mule deer carcass that had been killed by a mountain lion. I set up a trail cam watching the carcass, and after over a month I finally got a mountain lion visitor (actually two)!
I only got one other video of this mother with her juvenile cub, and no photos unfortunately. But it was great to see multiple different individuals in this one region. Below is that video, of mom and the cub smelling a scrape. Scrapes are how mountain lions mark their territory and communicate via scent. The cub is learning the ropes from its mother!
There’s one more video I want to share, and it’s of Notch being silly. Everyone knows the phrase “curiosity killed the cat”, and apparently it’s just as true for big cats!