Ecologist Dan Herrera sees a lot of animals on the camera traps he helps place throughout green spaces in Washington D.C. The wooded corridor surrounding the Potomac River in the city’s northwest, along which the C&O Canal and bike path runs, is particularly rich: Here he’s spotted coyotes, red foxes, beavers, and even flying squirrels.

But Herrera saw one surprising creature while reviewing photos collected by a camera located west of the Palisades neighborhood: a bobcat. The wild animal, sex unknown, passed through the area at 6:21 a.m. on November 9. (There’s a large backlog of photos that he’s now combing through.)

“It’s really exciting,” says Michael Cove, a researcher with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute who often works with Herrera.