Hi Lowell. Today I went down into South County to make life miserable for a bunch of ground squirrels. Some of them were kind of hard to see as the grass is starting to get a little high.

I was sitting on a little ridge overlooking a small open meadow when I spotted about 10 or 12 deer. Haven’t see that many in one spot for a long time now. I watched them for a couple of minutes when I caught a movement up the ridge across the meadow from me.

It was a young mountain kitty. She was stalking the deer. I sat there for almost an hour not moving just watching the drama unfold. She slowly made her way down the ridge trying to keep brush and rocks between her and the deer. I glassed the area in front of her and knew she was going to have a hard time getting close enough to the deer so that she could catch one. There was very little wind and I could see that the deer were completely unaware of her presence.

At one point she stopped as if to survey the area. At first I thought she was going to turn to her left so as to place herself in the trees along the edge of the meadow and wait for the deer to get closer. However she didn’t do that. She moved a little closer. Not sure what tipped the deer off, but a big doe let out a snort jerked her head up and headed towards the trees with her tail high in the air. The others followed and the drama was over. Score one to nothing in favor of the deer. She laid down as if to say, “It’s been a long morning.” She got up and went off into the trees in the same direction as the deer, but from the way they were running she wouldn’t be catch up with them anytime soon.

She won’t live to be an old kitty unless she gets her hunting technique down. Nature is a cruel teacher. You don’t make very many mistakes if you expect to live. Take Care…Don in creepy town