Living Dangerously 2 - Bobcat Attack!

Well OK, it didn't actually attack us, but it clearly thought about it for a microsecond.

We had quite an exciting walk on Sunday. Let me set the scene. The sun was beating down, we were running out of water and five miles from the car. Hiking vigorously atop a cliff overlooking the Pacific. We had just about reached the furthest point of our hike, and had decided to do a small loop around a lake before setting off on the return journey.

Then I saw the cat. It was strolling back from the shore of the lake, about 50 yards away, crossing the path ahead. Well, I could tell it wasn't a lion because it was spotty and orange, not golden. It looked for all the world like a leopard, which I've seen before in South Africa. You really don't want to mess with a leopard (and never mind that there are no leopards in California).

Then it stopped dead and started eyeballing me.

Being trained in the art of dealing with mountain lions (see earlier post), we stood firm and stared right back at it. (Well, one of us did, the other wailed and started running in the opposite direction.) I could see it was sizing me up. For just a second, I thought we were going to fight.

Then it remembered that it was a bobcat, barely twice as large as a domestic cat, and not capable of killing anything bigger than a small deer. On balance, it decided discretion was the better part of valour, and retreated to the bushes. Victory was mine. How proud I am.

The thing is, we didn't know it was a bobcat at the time, and from that distance it was hard to tell how big it was, OK? So after a brief conference we cancelled our loop round the lake and set off walking back to the car at a lively pace, rocks in hand just in case the bugger sprang at us from the bush. And that's when we ran into the snake.

Now as snakes go it was small, perhaps two feet long at the most, but some of the smallest snakes inflict the deadliest bites, I'm told. At any rate, we were now stuck. Big cat behind, little snake in front, many miles from the car. Overhead, vultures were circling - literally.

Let's cut a long story short here. I'd like to carry on pretending that we are intrepid bush explorers, but the fact is that when we got home we found that the snake was a California red-sided garter snake, possibly the least dangerous snake in the state. The worst it can do is smell bad if you try to pick it up. So although we like to think of ourselves as daredevil explorers pushing back the boundaries of our safe, urban existence, we are in fact just a couple of city slickers who get freaked out when confronted with some of California's least intimidating wildlife.

Still, at least now I know I'm the kind of man who will stand his ground when confronted with what he thinks is a ferocious, leopard-sized cat. That has to be worth something, right?