Mountain Lions have to be one of the most elusive predators found in the Rockies. The stealthy cats are probably a lot more common than we know…they just don’t come out in the open often.
On the 8th of January, 2020, I was at home making a grilled cheese sandwich and received a call from a friend. She said there was a Mountain Lion sighting at the Maverick convenience store. For almost any other animal, would have hung up the phone and rushed over, but I just said, “Okay, thanks”, thinking there would be no way it woulds still be there. When she told me the cat was on a kill next to Maverick, I turned the burner off and left my sandwich in the skillet. As the crow flies, the Maverick Store is only 3 blocks from my house, so I was there in no time.
The Mountain Lion had killed a Mule Deer on the hillside north of the Maverick store. After feeding, it would rest under a cedar tree a short distance away. When I made it to the Maverick store, there were only a couple of photographers there. The first group stayed back from the road and more or less hid in the bushes.
When Ravens and Magpies started feeding on the kill, the Lion would burst out of the tree and scare the scavengers away. After clearing the scene, it went back to the cedar tree.
During that first hour or so, the cat repeated the routine, so I was able to change my shooting angle a couple of times. News spread like wildfire, and before long, more and more viewers and long lens photographers showed up. As the crowd swelled, people lined up on the sidewalk, some with lawn chairs and coolers. It reminded me of a tailgate party at a sporting event. Over the next couple of days, even more people showed up from out of state. With all of the commotion, the Mountain Lion changed its behavior, coming out to feed during the night instead of the day. At some point, I only did drive bys once in a while to see the event. From what I heard, the cat did occasionally come back to the carcass in the daytime, but far less often.
I tried a few times, but my night time shots were miserable, especially at first. With a little more practice, I started seeing improvement. The darker couple of photos were taken at roughly 5:00am on the last moring I believe the Mountain Lion came back to the carcass. When I drove into the parking lot that morning, it was back on the kill. I was the only person there! The Lion made the kill just above a wire mesh retainer on the hillside. The wire was visible on any photo when the Mountain Lion was feeding on the carcass, so I didn’t take a lot of it. In the last shot, I removed the wire in Photoshop. With essentially no light, ANY movement resulted in a blurry shot. The two I included from that morning were from the few precious seconds when it was still at the time I pressed the button.
