WILD KINGDOM

The dog and I were walking yesterday and we spotted a young deer on the hill. We walked closer and saw it was standing just above another creature in the grass below. At first I thought it might be a small mountain lion—we have those visiting every once in a while—but once we saw its tail I knew it was a bobcat—one big as our dog—who dropped her ball in amazement. We both stared as the bobcat backed off into the brush. The deer took a step towards it, then continued all the way into the edge of the weeds to be with it. The cat hopped up onto a low tree branch, observed us for a while, with the deer next to it, and then it calmly left the tree and started to slowly pad away. And the deer followed it like a friend! Off they went into the forest. I was sorry I didn’t have my mobile phone to film that whole thing, it was the strangest episode, like Uri Geller bending a UFO. I could almost hear Marlin Perkins narrating in my head about the mysterious wonders of nature.