Meeting Junior!

12/19/2015

After patiently waiting until he arrived again at the feeder, I finally got the chance to meet him in person. This is Junior, the third cub of Lotje, in pictures. Enjoy!

Lotje knows her way around, here, in Kabalebo. For nearly 3 years now she is one of our regular visitors at the ocelot feeder. In the beginning she was very suspicious and shy, but nowadays she is part of the Kabalebo family. In 3 years time she managed to take care of 3 cubs: Katja, Spotje and now Junior. Lotje knows how to raise her cubs by herself. A single mother that surely deserves the 'Mother-of-the-year' award.

The first time that the trap cam recorded the first appearance of Junior, was on October 20, 2015. At first we thought that he would appear more frequently at the feeder, but Lotje doesn't want to spoil him too much at such a tender age. In November he appeared only once and in December on the third day. We can safely say that she makes sure that he is raised the proper way. Here are some pictures of mother and son at the feeder:

Lotje let him 'go wild and crazy' at the feeder that night. Well actually, he ate only 3 small pieces and the rest was eaten by his mother. Lotje is still breast feeding him. She had a very calm presence, which worked its magic on Junior. He wasn't alarmed or scared when I took some pictures of them.

Here you can see a nice close up of him trying to eat some chicken. Very impatient little man; he was chewing like crazy.

Here they just finished the buffet. Lotje was also very alert of her surroundings, she kept scanning the whole area while Junior was eating.

Just before they left and continued their night walk in the forest, Junior looked straight into my camera. Our first meeting!

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