A Gift of Lynx

Seeing wildlife up close is an event that I always consider a gift. Every now and then one of those gifts is so special that I don’t even have proper words to describe what it means to me. Two years ago, it was a wolf family in Denali Park. This past July, it was a young grizzly beside the Top of the World Highway.

Yesterday, I was driving to Skagway for a meeting, and 4 lynx started to run across the road right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes to the extent I could on a very icy road, and got stopped with 2 lynx 50 feet away directly out my left-hand-window, and 2 more 100 feet away directly out my right-hand window. As always my camera was right beside me, and I took a few “insurance” shots with my 18-55mm lens, fully expecting the cats to leave quickly. But they didn’t, so I switched to a 75-300mm telephoto and kept shooting.

This is one of the best of the 22 shots I got before they left. It seemed to be parents with two yearling kittens – although they were all about the same size, two were quite skittish and two were much more curious, as I’d expect kittens to be.