Documentation of Eurasian lynx sleeping on a tree height and the species calling from a height on tree

Coauthor: Irina Rotenko

At 4PM on 19th of April 2020 in Naliboki Forest, the central-western Belarus we were walking in swamped black alder forest in the Vol’ka small river valley. The weather was quite cool and windy, but from time to time with sunshine. Then in one place we heard the lynx calling plausibly from a tree height. In total we heard about 40 callings with 2 seconds to 4 minutes interval. Moderate strength wind was blowing to our side from the direction of lynx calling place. It was luck and so we succeeded to approach the lynx 100-130 meters. The lynx was still calling from black alder tree on the height about 16 meters (see photo).

Then in 15-20 minutes the lynx quieted and got positioning on sunshine and it seemingly began sleeping. While the lynx was sleeping we approached it about 15-20 meters to the tree. The lynx slept in one pose, then with time changed position for another sleeping pose that was cozier (see photos).

Finally this lynx detected us.

We quickly put two camera-traps and went away. According to the camera registration the lynx began climbing down in about 50 minutes. The climbing down was quite quick – less then one minute.

It was not a big adult male (still with quite big testes). He appeared in the core area of another adult lynx male (Bazyl’) that disappeared (plausibly died) in autumn 2019. We think that this newly appeared adult male was establishing own territory marking it by calling. It is also worthwhile to notice that during previous evening we heard regular lynx calling about one kilometer aside between 9 and 11 pm.

Read more about tree-climbing behavior of lynxes here.