A mother mountain lion and her offspring patrol a mountain in the Plain Valley.

I’ve spent more than three years trying for these shots.  A mountain lion.  In daylight. At close range and looking at the camera.

When it finally happened at one of my newest honey holes, the camera trapping gods blessed us with not one but TWO healthy cats within five feet of the camera.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the internet looking at game camera footage, and this series of about 20 images are some of the best I’ve ever come across (cough, cough, shameless brag, cough, cough).

I’ve developed a healthy respect for mountain lions over the years.  For one thing I now hike with bear spray – not for the bears, but for the cats.

They are common in many forests – game cameras prove that fact – and yet the hard truth is that you almost never see them.  In all the years I’ve spent in the outdoors, I’ve never seen one in the wild. Never wandering across a Forest Service road, not backpacking, not living in the mountains or car camping or raiding a dumpster.  Never with my own eyes.  And that’s a common story among the outdoors people I know.

Mountain Lions (also know as cougars and pumas) have learned to thrive by avoiding humans.  I’m sure they’ve seen me hundreds if not thousands of times, but each time they’ve chosen to remain discrete.

One of the reasons they get a bad rap because in the rare cases when they do attack a human it’s so dramatic and it reminds us that we can’t control everything and there’s sill are still some creatures that can take us down.  So that bothers us.

Yet as my friend Haakon said the other week, “They’re the closest thing we have to an actual African lion and they’re living in our back yard.  That’s a pretty special thing.”

Just look at those muscles. Can you imagine one of those paws taking a swipe at you? And that’s the juvenile.  Shudder.

While a pair of healthy cougars were the big score this month, we also had a lot of activity on the other cameras.

Here are the highlights from August 2019.

A large collared black bear walks right by our house

Five days later – an even bigger bear

Different bear, also near the house

Different bear, also near the house

Obligatory skunk photo

I put some rotten meat on a ridge to see what animal would find it. The answer is: Turkey Vultures.

It goes on like this for about 100 frames until the meat is gone

The scariest animal of all!