Ken and his group were out cross country skiing at Bondi yesterday. As they returned, Ken paused to ask, "do you have bobcats around here?"Well, yes, we do. Good luck seeing them. They are very reclusive.
Turns out they had found tracks along one of the ski trails. "Much too small for a lynx," Ken said. Too round to be a fox... This is one of the great things about snow -- it holds a record of everyone who passes. In Siberia, trappers and hunters call it the White Book.
Unlike the Canadian lynx, which is much larger, the bobcat does not limit itself to hare and rabbit for the dining table. Opportunistic, bobcat will commonly switch prey species. Wild turkeys, for instance, are quite tasty. If prey is scarce, males have been known to hunt small deer. Bobcats also prey on other small mammals, such as squirrels and chipmunk, rodents and birds. Generally they hunt both by night and day, although there is evidence to suggest that most hunting takes place at dawn and dusk, corresponding to peak periods of activity of the hare and rabbit, their main prey species. Bobcat tend to be more diurnal during the winter months
Thanks to Kim Carera for the image of the track in snow.
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