After three years of observing wildlife at Warbler Pond of 690 Los Pueblos on Barranca Canyon and our pond at 1800 Camino Redondo on Pueblo Canyon definite patterns began to emerge. The house at Los Pueblos was a particularly good spot for wildlife since not only was Barranca Canyon in the back but the front of the house bordered Bayo Canyon making it easy access to both these canyons. Fox, raccoon, and coyote were regular visitors year round at both ponds that could be seen multiple times in a given week. Ringtail and skunk were common at 1800 Camino Redondo but rare at Los Pueblos which is interesting since the locations are only 4 miles away from another but border different canyons. Bobcats visited intermittently at Los Pueblos often at least on a monthly basis and rarely at Camino Redondo. Bears usually visited both locations in the summer months in good fruit years or years with little rain. Deer were hard to predict but did visit Los Pueblos throughout the year. Deer were just as common at 1800 Camino Redondo but couldn't make it to the pond due the steep canyon behind our house. Moutanin Lion visits were the most rare of any animal at either location. However, in the 3 years I had been observing the ponds, a mountain lion always visited Warbler Pond in the month of May (5/6/2012, 5/18/2013, 5/6/2014). There were also visits in November, December, January, March and September but there was no obvious pattern except for May. All visits lasted less than 5 minutes and the cougar never returned making it very difficult to capture the visit with my Phototrap DSLR combination since 1) I had to set it up everyday and I live 15 minutes away from my Parent's home where Warbler Pond is located 2) it isn't water proof like the critter cams. However, I was determined to overcome these hurdles since I wanted to take advantage of getting high quality photos of such a rare majestic visitor in a beautiful setting like Warbler Pond. The critter cam was limited to taking night time shots at intervals of about 30 seconds so even a several minute visit only resulted in a few pictures. In addition, focus and quality of the critter cams is nothing like a DSLR. The Canon 7D DSLR with Phototrap would take shots every 3 seconds when motion/heat is detected and the focus can be controlled much better.

Since the cougar had visited every May for the last 3 years, I decided to setup the Phototrap every day starting the last week in April in the hope that I would capture the cougar with the Phototrap. It turned out to be a much wetter year than usual. Los Alamos tends to be very dry in May before the monsoon starts and maybe this was why the cougar would visit. This year was different with a lot more rain fall. This made it difficult to put out the Phototrap which wasn't weather proofed. I decided to weather proof my setup. I found out that putting a plastic bag over the motion/heat sensor did not impact its effectiveness. I also hammered a PVC pipe into the ground and inserted an umbrella into it to cover the camera. I also gathered my critter cams from other locations to make sure all angles were covered. Here is a picture of the setup: (click).

All of May passed and even though I got great shots of the usual critters including many of a spectacular bobcat (click) that made many visits, no cougar. I even got pictures of both bobcat (click) and fox (click) catching a packrat. Since I had my waterproofed setup and often make it to my parents place for Aditya to play I kept it up over the summer. Still no cougar. There were many days I didn't setup due to other commitments, being out of town or really bad weather. But the critter cams confirmed that no cougar visited on these days either. September arrived and I was beginning to wonder if the cougar that had been coming through in May's past had died, moved to another area or simply found another favorite watering hole. It was difficult to tell if the same cougar came each May in any case. I also wondered if my setup of so many camera's, umbrella, etc had may have spooked the cougar. Although the other animals kept coming. Since a cougar had come September 30,2014, I thought perhaps sticking it out through September would be worth it. Also, another hypothesis I had was that May and September may be months where cougars move from summer to winter grounds and perhaps we get cougars who pass through stopping at the pond.

September 14, 2015 rolled around and the moment I had been waiting for finally arrived! A cougar mother and cub made their way to Warbler Pond and all the work in getting the perfect setup, photo and flash settings paid off. Here are the 3 cougar visits within a 4 day period that I was able to capture with the setup! For those with High resolution monitors click here: (Hi-Res Day 1) (Hi-Res Day 2) (Hi-Res Day 3) (Hi-Res Composites). For low resolution monitors click here: (Lo-Res Day 1) (Lo-Res Day 2) (Lo-Res Day 3) (Lo-Res Composites).

Here is a slideshow of the best Mountain Lions photos captured with Phototrap and a Canon 7D DSLR. I have also included a sampling of the other animals that visited in this four day period to show that Warbler Pond is a busy place and the cougar visit did not prevent the other animals from paying a visit. I thought perhaps the other animals may smell the presence of the cougar and not visit the pond but this wasn't the case: (Slideshow).

Amazingly it took till August 2017 for a cougar to return. It looks like the same female and she may be grown a bit. She is looking healthy and came at dusk making for wonderful shots with the canyon in the background! (Hi-Res Shots at Dusk). In April 2018, this magnificient male came in as the light faded resulting in one of my best cougar photos yet. The phototrap only took one shot so this fellow was shy maybe indicating he's new to the territory. It will be interesting to see if he makes more visits (Hi-Res Shot at Dusk)! It took till July 2018 but he did return looking even larger and stronger. He came twice providing some of the best shots yet. After several years with no more sightings we got a flurry of cougar activity in November and December of 2020. This is probably due to large deer populations in town and things being very quiet due to Covid-19 restrictions. We upgraded our setup to take video as while so now we have some videos of cougars too! This slideshow shows the best photos and videos of cougars to date. Some of the photos are composites that combine long expsosure backgrounds to capture the stars and canyon and short exposure flash to capture the cougar. This was an idea Nationa Geographic photographer Tim Laman suggested when he saw the location of Warbler Pond and how it could have nice foreground and backgrounds. Amazing shots possible with a DSLR and a camera trap. Since the initial PhotoTrap shots, I upgraded to Camptrations Phototrap that is far more portable allowing for shots a different locations near ours houses. After years of seeing cougars visit the ponds, we have never seen cubs. Reading, mothers are usually with cubs at least 50% of the time. One idea I had was that maybe a mother stashes here kids in the canyon before coming to our ponds. I purchased a Reconyx Pro trailcam that can take a shot every second at good qualify. Not as good as a DSLR, but quite good. Within a few months, my hypothesis was proven true, here is a mother with two subadults! Also a very large male we call Torn ear due to his torn ear! (Slideshow) . With proof that cougars are patroling the back canyon, I decided to setup the DSLR with camptraptions hoping I could get high quality shots of the mother, cubs and father. Amazingly with patience, it worked. It turned out cougars patrol the canyon far more often than they visit the ponds. Here is a slideshow of the best cougar photos that are a mix of critter cam, and DSLR phototraph and Camtraptions (many of which are from the canyon): (Slideshow). In November 2021, I went to talk given by the rangers at Bandelier and Valles Caldera that run a large mammal project where they collar cougars. After many interesting discussions, in March 2022, we decided to try out my DSLR camera trap setup at a site where a collared cougar with 10 month old cubs had killed a mule deer. We wanted to see if we could get better photos than the trailcams. This turned out to be a big success: (Click). In Janurary 2023, my colleague from work noticed a large mule deer stag had been taken down in the mini canyon behind his house on Villa Street. He suspected it was Mountain Lion kill and knew that I photographed them. Aditya and I setup a DSLR for still photos and one for video. That night the large uncollared male of the area, aka Big Boy, came in to feed. He actually came for 8 days allowing multiple amazing photo opportunities. We even got to see him from Adam's deck once at 5 pm and got photos with the telelphoto lens. The first time we have cougar photos that are not from a camera trap. Here is a slideshow: (Click).