I go out to Debbie’s backyard to have a smoke and late in the day play my xaphoon. Here is a list of all the animals I have seen in Debbie’s backyard since being here for three months: squirrels, rabbits, soft shell turtles, always lizards, bats, vultures flying overhead, osprey, all kinds of herons, egrets, red-shouldered hawk, sandhill cranes, and yesterday (July 9) a Bobcat sitting in a tree. No alligators yet, but I am still looking.
Her yard is not very large. Maybe 20 yards long and 15 yards wide. There is a water filled ditch that connects two retention ponds. The ditch was dry when we first got here three months ago, but now it is filled with water from some heavy rains (this is the rainy season now).
Yesterday, I went out back for a smoke after a brief siesta and was looking across the stream to a tall tree on the other side when I saw what looked to be a brown palm leaf caught in the tree about three quarters of the way up, but that did not look quite right. I went inside to get Debbie’s binoculars and saw that it was a Bobcat that was napping with it’s butt stuck in a fork in the tree. I went back inside to get Debbie who was also resting. I asked her if she wanted to see a Bobcat and at first I could see the confusion on her face and she got flustered not knowing what to do. Debbie is a naturalist and gets very excited over almost any animal or bird. She originally thought I wanted to show her something on the computer, but quickly realized that I was talking about a real live Bobcat.
These pictures of the Bobcat are courtesy of Debbie Reed. Because her’s is bigger than mine. I mean her camera lens. We ended up naming the Bobcat Oscar, because it was very plain to see that this was a male Bobcat.
