Who are we? We are our stories.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Santa Ana Water and Bobcat?

There has been a lot of rain in the Rio Grande Valley this year so everything is green. Santa Ana is a 2000+ acre NWR ten miles south of us on the Rio Grande. Prior to the construction of the Falcon Dam up river, the Rio Grande River was higher and would overflow in Spring and fill the arroyos. Since the dam, this is done by pumping water from the river or wells into the highest pond, then diverting it to lower ponds. It is all artificial now, but the wildlife doesn't know or care.

These photos are primarily for the Kootaney Kid, who chose not to come down from his ice castle high in Canada's Kootaney Rockies this year.


















Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about Bobcats. Santa Ana used to have Ocelots and possibly Jaguarundi. No more, we finally killed off the last of the varmints, leaving us with Coyotes and a slim scattering of Bobcats. Last evening as we were leaving the refuge, I saw a Bobcat on the path on top of the main levy. It was quite some distance away and moving fast away from us. I whistled loudly to get it to stop and look, and I managed to get a couple of distant pictures just to save the moment. Here they are the severely cropped photos.




Biggest  $%#&*! feral cat I've ever seen .... apparently a little closer than I thought.

Damned photographs. Maybe I can Photoshop that tail out for the future retelling of the tale.


And Swallows! I must write something about the incredible number and variety of Swallows whizzing past our heads yesterday. There must have been a hatch of insects. Just Amazing.          
-Done.

 May all your  'Cats be real, -G.

3 comments:

Margadant said...

I concur; that's one hellacious feral cat.

Gunnar Berg said...

I thought it might be a bobcat/housecat cross. I checked, extremely unlikely. Just a CAT.

Redwing said...

Amazing to see all that green and water. Thanks for thinking of me. "The Kootenay Kid."