By Sean Fagan
The stunning and elusive bobcat (Photo: Wikimedia Commons).
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The Mysterious Bobcat
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The bobcat, Lynx rufus, is a medium-sized wild cat found mostly in the USA and Mexico.
In many parts of it's geographic range there can be a common belief among hunters, farmers and other people that work on the land that the bobcat has disappeared from a lot of areas even though there may be significant tracts of suitable bobcat habitat and prey in these areas.
Often though, the bobcat still exists in a lot of these places.
Bobcats are often notoriously elusive (especially when persecuted).
They will, for example, leap over trails to avoid leaving their scent and tracks on trails and can become predominantly nocturnal/crepuscular to avoid human persecution.
My overall point is, when you go in to a wild place throw away any preconceptions about what tracks you will find based on what animals you may or may not expect to see in a given area.
And I use the term wild place in the loosest sense of the its meaning.
A wild place could be local park, an old hedgerow along a small stream, a meadow.
One thing is generally a sure thing – there are probably some wild animal tracks and sign somewhere in these pockets of nature.
Whether it be the minuscule jawbone of a mouse atop a fence post – left by a feeding kestrel, or a 2cm wide burrow entrance on a woodland floor indicating the presence of an underground bumblebee hive or the iridescent shimmer of insect wings encased within a bat dropping - there is always something to investigate, something to enjoy.
Casting aside our expectations when tracking - and expecting to see more, is a great way to expand tracking skills. Why?
Because tracks and sign are far more common and widespread than commonly perceived and expecting to see more will re-calibrate your powers of observation with the expectation of seeing more.
That subtle shift in attitude can make all the difference.
Tracks can appear in unusual places, such as this fox track on a high mountain bog - bottom centre of photo (Photo: Sean Fagan - Galtee Mountains , south Ireland).
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