Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Canadian Lynx in New Hampshire


 



 


If a lynx bounds through 18 inches of fresh power in the woods of northern N.H. and nobody is there, does it still make a noise?  

Trick question.

       Day in and day out, as the lynx races through thick underbrush searching for a snowshoe hare, it makes no noise. The the trees, almost in awe of such beauty, appear to bow outwardly to tunnel of travel. Massive paws allow this cat to skillfully and silently walk on top of the softest snow.

     With such a low density of lynx in N.H., I truly enjoy the challenge of trying to photograph them. For me, it is the ultimate test to design the right tools (remote camera systems) and combine those tools with the past experience and knowledge of wildlife to predict why/where an animal will be before it gets there.

          When working with remote cameras, in particular long term camera sets, if things can go wrong, they will. Moisture in the camera leads to blurry pictures, batteries die, the cold stops components from working, a curious moose or bear moves/steals/punctures the camera only to be found face down or waterlogged months later, and the list goes on. These photos, taken in the winter of 2013, highlight one such success. One lynx, eight pictures, frozen in time.