Do You See A Cougar?

 I played with kittens in the park last night.   

I never meant to try for the last two needing fixed, but even though they had been fed, when I saw them, I put out the kitten trap still in the back of my car.   I suppose I'd gotten quite bored stuck at home all day doing cleaning chores.  I finally forced myself out of the house, much to the approval of my cats, who like me to leave everyday, and took a drive.  There are not a lot of pleasant places to walk, nearby, so I ended up at the park.  Its why this park is so popular.  Where else you gonna go around here.  And the river is beautiful.

I had to chase the long fixed adults off again and again and used up all my wet food trying to keep the adults and the fixed pair of kittens out of the trap.  Most of the fixed adults are coming to recreate, like people do, from the residential district.  They cause a lot less harm, than people, I should add.  And help by hunting the ground squirrels, relentlessly, as do some of the free roaming off leash dogs.  However the dogs do it by digging huge holes.  The cats sit patiently, sometimes for hours, by a hole, waiting.

The torti mom, whom I call Princess, fixed last week, showed up with one of the unfixed kittens in tow--the long hair black tux, who turns out to be a dark torti too.  I didn't see Bruce Almighty, the long hair orange freshly fixed boy.  Rocky showed up.  Cumi did too, and he now blatantly ignores people, which could end up his undoing. And TC came to the party.  TC is trap happy and will even try to squeeze into a kitten trap.

The long hair torti tux kitten is precocious and even came near my car, to peek at me.  Oh my gosh is she cute.

I tried to take a photo of Princess, and her darling long hair daughter.  In the dark, through my windshield, the photo came out quite distorted.  I posted the pair of photos nonetheless on my personal facebook page.  Soon I got a message from a Sweet Home lady I'm friends with, who asked where I was at, if maybe I was close to her location, which is very rural, because she had seen the cougar in the photo I had posted of the torti.  She was hoping I was ok but mainly wanted to know where this was that I was trapping and where a cougar was prowling too.   

There were deer behind me in the field.  The moon was up and nearly full.  I was enjoying the night immensely.   This is why I love trapping, I thought, nights like this, not a human near, the stars bright, wildlife out......

I don't want a face to face with a cougar, however.   Been there, done that, do not enjoy.

I assured my friend, via a fading phone and messenger, there was no cougar near that torti.   That where she thinks she sees a cougar in the photo is actually a steep berry vine covered embankment, that she is seeing photo distortion from darkness, distance, and because my windshield is dirty.

But the intrigue continues with people who see something behiind the torti, in the photo, and those who don't.  

Do you see a cougar above the adult torti in the photo?

I did not catch either of the unfixed kittens last night.  I did catch both fixed kittens again and quickly let them go.  I did half catch TC, whose huge body will not entirely fit into the kitten trap but he tried, so the trap closed on his shoulders and he just backed out, looked my way, backed off as if letting me know more bait was needed now.  Yeah ok, TC, thanks.  I'm out.

DeAnna has supplied me my own photo back with the alleged cougar circled, lol.  She says her son says she needs new glasses.  I told her I need glasses period.  

First, wanting to see what she saw, I sent her my own photo with what I thought she thought was a cougar circled in red.  Here's my Find the Cougar solution:

Can you see it, only a head, kind of looking sideways, nose at bottom of circle, with a white cheek sort of besite it and an eye above that....lol.  Now for my friends big cougar head.....circled...

Deanna sees a cougar

Now that head would be the head of a HUGE cougar.  Looks like its painted its eyes in goth, in black, that runs down beneath each eye, and black spider veining down its forehead, with ears like a cropped rottweiler's.  Ok, now I can't not see it.

Another friend says "that's pareidolia". Ok, new word for me. Look it up.

"the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern"

Ok, I get it. Jesus face in the toasted cheese sandwich.