Taiwan - Chenjean's Village, Tree Branch Pattern #3 with SPECIAL SPECTATOR / Panther Sighting

I had been eyeing this tree, with its open branch pattern, as an interesting prospect when Terry, ever the eagle-eye for nature, pointed out that there was a MONKEY sitting there WATCHING US THE WHOLE TIME!  Whether this was a favorite spot of his or whether he was acting as sentry for a troop somewhere we had no way of knowing, but he stayed in that nook for a while, and did not appear to be too excited about us being there.

As in the first time we saw a wild monkey I immediately went crazy snapping away with the Bigger Cahoona, and was amazed at this guy's acute sense of hearing.  There was noise all around - the water in the sort-of-waterfall right behind us and wind blowing briskly through the trees - but at the very first snap of the shutter, being a different sound, he did a double take and stared right at me, holding his gaze as long as the clacking continued.  And this was from a fair distance away; the pic featured here was captured at the full 300mm, and highly cropped to boot in post-capture.

Were it not for the camera noise I think he would have hung out a little longer, but when I failed to stop the racket he began to act agitated and scurried down into the vegetation below.  We'd heard that they're everywhere now in great numbers, and to be honest it made me a little bit anxious to see the evidence.  We had a long way to go back to the house...what if this guy told all his friends and they decided to ambush?  Didn't happen of course, but the possibility stayed in the back of my mind on every hike we took from then on.

There was another time when I felt very, very vulnerable after seeing a large animal in the wild.  We traveled to far West Texas with some good friends from church, and took a hike in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, some pics of which are posted beginning January 2012.  We had gone around this nice little area and were headed back to where the car was parked when, due to my stopping to take pictures so much, I found myself alone on the trail.  It was getting dark when I noticed movement in a small shallow valley below us.  Glancing over, in the not-enough-distance I saw a huge black cat traipsing across the expanse, traveling away to the other side.  When it got to the edge of the river bed it turned, looked in my direction (in the near-darkness I imagined it was directly at me!), and after a moment slipped down the embankment and out of sight.  I was stunned at the absolute silence that this cat maintained while walking in the dry grass, and the size - due to the distance it must have been at least the size of a German Shepherd, which means it had to have been a mountain lion or panther.  Then I realized that this huge cat was around as it was getting dark, with me alone with my stupid camera.  Worse, with my wife and children ahead on the trail!  True fear took hold, and the hundred yards remaining to the car was a very, very long walk for me...and I vowed never to put myself in that position again.