Below you see a male bobcat in a nearby field yesterday guarding a deer carcass. I’ve named him Jack for conversational convenience.
He’s a handsome devil that I’m virtually certain we’ve been seeing locally for about three years.
Jack apparently has started covering the carcass with surrounding grass. That’s a trait of bobcats; they scrape up leaves or grass to cover large prey and return to their stash for subsequent meals. When I got within about 100 feet of Jack, he slowly got up and trotted off a distance. I stopped and did not get closer to his prey, and he trotted back to it. All the while, he was cautious, but not fearful.
Due to the distance that I maintained, I couldn’t determine whether Jack took down this deer or just found its dead body, but the deer was not in a state of decay. Bobcats have been reported to take down crippled and otherwise weak adult deer that are larger than the felines. (There are a surprising number of crippled and dying deer in the wild, many of which have been hit by vehicles on roads in their territories.)
Research shows that Bobcats are opportunistic and will prey on almost any edible thing that is available. Principally, they are reported to prey on small animals such as mice, voles, shrews, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, rabbits, and hares. However, they’ve been seen occasionally taking porcupines, minks, muskrats, skunks, fish, frogs, and insects. And, sometimes, they get to eat venison and deer organs. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on December 16, 2022.)