Bobcat Marking Its Territory

The tree in these photos was regularly visited by this male bobcat, usually just after sunrise or late in the afternoon. During morning visits, he would be moving left-to-right, and would walk past the tree, ignoring it. During the afternoon, he would be walking in the opposite direction, and nearly always paused to spray the tree, marking the surrounding area as part of his territory.

To obtain these photos, I used an infrared alarm that we had bought to keep cats off the kitchen counter (yes, I'm talking about you, Brutus). I rewired the alarm so it would act as an automatic camera trigger. The device had about a 45 degree field of view, which covered the area around the tree and allowed me to capture the bobcat when it was traveling in either direction. The camera would continue to take photos for as long as the cat was within the trigger's field of view.

Since the bobcat often visited during the daylight hours, I did not used flash. These photos were taken using natural light.