Three days later, Norm Lee shot photos of the kitten\u2019s mom.<\/p>\n
Here kitty, kitty, kitty.<\/p>\n
A Lynn Valley photographer has nabbed some photos of a lifetime after years of scouring the wilderness \u2013 a baby bobcat and its mother.<\/p>\n
Norm Lee\u2019s Instagram feed is a Noah\u2019s Ark<\/a> of bears, deer, mountain goats, pikas, beavers, birds and other critters from around B.C. It was in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve on Oct. 16 when he had the encounter he\u2019d been waiting for since he first spotted a bobcat in the wild in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI love bears and I\u2019ve photographed literally hundreds of bears and it never gets boring to me, but a bobcat has always been something that I\u2019ve wanted to shoot since my first missed opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During his afternoon visit, Lee spotted a bear near a pond but the lighting wasn\u2019t right, so he rode his bike to the other side in hopes of getting a better pic.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m probably 20 metres from the bear and I walk over and I see something on the side of the stream and the little bobcat looks up at me,\u201d he said. \u201cI was kind of in awe and got kind of numb, actually. It\u2019s been something I\u2019ve been after for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n With the bear lurking somewhere behind him, Lee said he knew he\u2019d only have a matter of seconds to get a shot off before the notoriously elusive feline bolted. The kitten had likely never seen a human before and hung around for about 20 seconds, which gave Lee the time he needed to train his lens on the animal and snap his photos.<\/p>\n Lee estimates the bobcat was about six months old \u2013 smaller than a common house cat. Bobcats typically have two to four kittens per litter, which will stay with their mothers for up to a year. Lee reasoned the mom and siblings were likely somewhere around,\u00a0so he went back to the same area three days later and lightning struck twice.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably within two minutes of getting there, I spotted the mom running down the trail\u2026. It was total disbelief. If you had told me that story, I wouldn\u2019t believe you,\u201d he said. \u201cComing across one, let alone two in a period of three days, it\u2019s just unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n Lee tried his luck one more time later in the week but found a busy film set nearby and no animals of any kind.<\/p>\n Not everyone is so lucky as to have such beautiful wildlife mingling in their backyard, Lee said. He rides his bike into the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve at least twice a week in hopes of capturing photos he can share. While some wildlife photographers, particularly birders, move in packs, Lee is a solitary animal.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to get the picture not everybody gets,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the woods, I\u2019m by myself. I can spend the time. If I know I\u2019m agitating the animal, I\u2019ll back off and there\u2019s plenty of room for the animal to go. And it\u2019s more of a personal experience.\u201d<\/p>\n To see Lee\u2019s other wildlife shots, follow him online at instagram.com\/phoenix45photo\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n