RAYMOND – After spending several hours at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge photographing the Tule Elk and water fowl on Sunday, my husband Justin wanted to continue the fun by taking the back way home to Oakhurst through Raymond, telling me “you never know what you might see along that road, maybe we’ll see a bobcat.”
Justin had seen bobcats and heard about wild boar running around out there, so he thought the chances were good that we might see something interesting. I was in a driving-coma after hours of being at the wheel and in the passenger seat, since we started our day in Monterey.
As we tooled along, both of us kept our eyes peeled for any sign of wildlife. After about 20 minutes, Justin spotted this bobcat sitting on the hill.
Justin stopped the truck, though by that time I had already jumped out, and the bobcat was quickly crossing the road to get away from us. I snapped a few shots, though I didn’t like the composition of the bobcat just walking across the road. Then, he disappeared into the brush.
We hopped back in the truck, went up the road and turned around, this time driving back slowly. I had my window rolled down and my camera ready when I saw the bobcat peer around the corner of the rock.
I yelled at Justin to “stop!” and had just enough time to raise my camera to focus a little bit and take the shot. I was lucky that my exposure was close to being correct and was able to capture most of the detail, especially with the sun backlighting him the way it was.
After a wonderful, relaxing weekend in Monterey, capturing this image was the perfect way to wrap up our trip.
