When I answered the phone one Sunday evening a few weeks ago, I could sense excitement in my neighbor's voice.

"A few days ago, in the middle of the afternoon," Jack explained, "I was driving by your house and about 100 feet past your garage, a bobcat crossed the road and entered your woods."

Jack Briggs, a retired coal miner, has lived here on the ridge his entire life, and he's seen bobcats before, but not often. I've lived here since 1985, and I've still never seen one. But I know they're here. I've seen two road kills, and occasionally I hear of one killed by a hunter.

Bobcats are probably more common than most people suspect. But they're shy, secretive and nocturnal. The few I've seen elsewhere over the years have been crossing the road at night. My one daytime observation was in southern Oklahoma.

I was birding and sensed I was being watched. I turned to the forest edge, and there it sat about 20 yards away, staring at me from the cover of a red cedar thicket. By the time I raised my binoculars, it was gone, like a ghost. I had to wonder if I had actually seen it.

Being watched by a bobcat is a thrill. They are too small to be a threat, though I suppose a lost small child might be considered food, although that's never happened in Pennsylvania. Bobcats weigh 13 to 35 pounds, but a 35-pounder would be a monster. Typically they are about twice the size of a house cat with proportionally longer legs. The short, white-tipped tail is marked by several dark bars and is distinctive.

Bobcats inhabit rugged woodlands and, like most cats, are ambush predators. Their primary foods include rabbits, squirrels, ground hogs, turkeys, grouse and other small rodents. The Bobcat population regulated by the Pennsylvania Game Commission through a limited season and firearm-trapping permits.

If ever you see a bobcat, consider it a lucky day. And I can almost guarantee it saw you before you saw it.