The athleticism of wild cats will never cease to impress me.
Whether it’s Florida panthers leaping over gates, a leopard carrying a rhino calf up a tree, or a bobcats leaping over huge gaps, there’s truly nothing like a creature that can be so silent, so powerful, and so downright agile.
This latest example comes to us from Estonia, where a wildlife photographer set up some trailcams to scout out local wildlife to track down and get some cool shots.
His name is Sander Hollo and he takes some really breathtaking shots of nature and the creatures that roam within it.
One of the sights he captured took place in a frozen winter forest, where we get to see a lynx trying to cross an iced over creek in -5 degree Celsius (5 degree Fahrenheit) temperatures.
In Europe, lynx grow to around 3-4 feet in length and can weigh up to 55 pounds, but the one we see here appears to be much smaller than that, so it’s probably still quite young.
The lynx begins walking out onto a fallen tree trunk that juts out into the small creek. While most of the water is frozen, a little further down you can see some running water, meaning the ice is far from stable, which the cat notices the second he puts a paw out onto it.
You can hear the tell tale sign of a bad time in a slight crack, which makes the lynx stop immediately and start weighing its options. For a second you think maybe it’ll just turn around and explore the area behind it, but in a sudden realization of what it is, the lynx takes another option.
It draws back and explodes outward, easily clearing the ice and landing gracefully on the other side. I’ll never not be impressed by cats jumping ability and this is just another example of the coiled springs of muscle under their coats.
Maybe this is a good lesson for us all. If the ground under us is unstable, just trust yourself and take a leap of faith.
But I know deep down if this was me I’d have slipped and broken through the ice immediately…
