Bobcat Update, Tucson Arizona

Sweetwater Wetlands is a small urban park off of I-10 in central Tucson. As of January 2022, four different bobcats have overlapping ranges here. Winter seems best; sighting success is between 50-75%. In summer that drops to more like 10%, though there are Arizona cotton rats then, round-tailed ground squirrels, and things like vermilion flycatchers and dragonflies.

Birding is good year-round.

Wetlands are open sunrise to sunset, seven days a week, with late opening on Mondays due to mosquito abatement. In fall if they are doing controlled burns, that adds additional closures.

Free parking. No entry fee. Restrooms at the car park.

The best strategy is to bring a friend and to patrol separate loops around the two main ponds, then call the other one if there’s something going on. They do hunt right in the middle of the marshland, so look everywhere. When I was there we saw one catch a coot and the week before a bobcat took a green heron.

This is a well-known site — some mornings bobcat fanciers outnumber birders.

No photos attached since trying to do that just crashed the upload, but this past weekend I had bobcats on two out of four sessions and my cousin had them on three out of four. We both got good photographs.

Good luck.

Charles Hood / hoodcw at gmail dot com