In one photo, a bobcat ambles down a game trail with a rabbit in its mouth. In another, a mountain-lion cub is caught in midleap, trailing its mother.
So starts a story by Laura Snider in the Boulder's Daily Camera newspaper about motion-activated cameras set out in undeveloped areas by a doctoral student hoping to gain insight into the area's bobcat population.
The cameras have revealed a lot more, so far, though. The story continues:
In the few months since 40 motion-activated cameras were spread out across the undeveloped lands west of Boulder and around Lyons, thousands of these kinds of pictures have been taken, giving a glimpse into a world of wildlife rarely seen by people.
The cameras, set up by Colorado State University doctoral student Jesse Lewis, are part of a larger study on bobcats in Boulder County. But the cameras have snapped photos of all kinds of critters, including bears, coyotes, skunks, foxes, deer, elk, bighorn sheep, rabbits and squirrels.
"The reason we set up the cameras was to characterize the urban interface," Lewis said. "They're primarily on open-space land and Forest Service land."
Read the rest of Laura Snider's story about the cameras and the photos of area wildlife they've captured here.
Makes me want to set a camera in my backyard!
Check out this photo from Gazette reporter and columnist Bill Vogrin of deer hunkered down in his backyard during the recent snow. Like statuary!:
