Tim Newton is a photographer from Alaska, so he’s no stranger to seeing lots of wildlife wandering around his property. However, one morning, he woke up to a sight that he had never seen before.
One night, as Tim was sleeping, he didn’t realize that an entire family of lynx was making his front porch their new hang out spot. He woke up because of a loud noise.
“It was right near dawn. I heard some noises; it was like something scrambling on the deck,” Tim told The Dodo. “Coming out of my slumber, I thought, ‘What the heck is that?’ So I put on my bathrobe and slowly eased back the curtain. And right there, 2 feet away, was a lynx kitten. He was sitting there watching his siblings race by.”
When he got a better look outside his window, Tim noticed that there were about three or four little lynx kittens romping around, playing with each other on his wood deck. He immediately grabbed his camera.
“They were running back and forth, pouncing on each other,” Tim said. “I started snapping away. I thought, ‘Wow! What incredible luck. This just beats all. This is just wonderful!
What makes this sighting so special is that lynx are usually known to be elusive creatures, keeping their distance from humans.
Tim had seen these beautiful wild cats in the forest before, but that was in their natural habitat, and from a distance. So, for him – this was an extremely rare and magical once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
After a few minutes of running back and forth on Tim’s deck, they scampered off and Tim thought that playtime must be over, but as it turns out – it had only just begun! Soon, he heard the mother lynx make a sound, calling her kids in, and Tim saw around 7 kittens run toward her.
“I’ve never seen so many lynx,” he said. “To see all these lynx on my deck, I was gobsmacked.”
The lynx were so preoccupied playing, and Tim was standing behind a screen, so they didn’t seem to notice him snapping all of these amazing photos. In fact, at one point, he was able to grab an entire family portrait. But, like most families, the kittens couldn’t focus for long and were soon playing again.
“They started to play again,” Tim said. “For the next 40 minutes, they all played on my deck. They were chasing each other, rolling and wrestling.”
Watching the mother lynx trying to wrangle in her children, he has a new-found respect for her patience.
“She has her hands full,” he said. “I’ve concluded that lynx must spend 1 percent of their waking lives chasing rabbits, and 99 percent chasing their kids. What a handful!”
Tim was able to grab lots of amazing pictures of the furry family without them seeming to notice, but soon – one approached the screen, seemingly wanting to investigate.
“I don’t know why I did this — maybe to say to him, ‘Oh, what a cute little kitty!’ — but I pulled the camera away from my face a little, and my eyes showed,” Tim said. “The look of terror on that kitten’s face! His eyes were wide open, and he just flew away from me! But the others didn’t pick up on it.”
By the time playtime was over, the mama lynx rounded up her kids and made their way back into the forest, leaving Tim with a memory he’ll never forget.
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