Two mountain lion sightings in San Mateo neighborhood in two days

SAN MATEO, Calif. (KGO) -- A San Mateo resident reported a second sighting of a mountain lion in the back of his home on Wednesday after finding himself some 20 feet away from the same cat the day before.

It was in the early morning hours Tuesday when Tim Weber was awakened by a loud noise. "A fawn screaming and happened several times," Weber said.

It was coming from the bottom of the hill near the creek bed below Weber's home. He got his son, Cole, and they walked with flashlights through the dense undergrowth.

"No more than 15, 20 feet from us, this cat just steps off a dead little fawn and darts up the hill," Tim Weber said. The mountain lion had been feasting on the young deer it had just killed.

"We were both like, 'Whoah, that's a mountain lion. Like, let's get away from here,'" Cole Weber said.

Tim Weber says the cat just froze in the bushes. Its eyes were hypnotic. "They glow. It's like a glowing, greenish-red color. Yeah," he said.

On Wednesday around noon, Tim Weber thought he saw the lion again as he gazed at the hillside from his deck. "We get down there, turn the corner, and, man, all of a sudden up pops that lion, and I was like 'Oh boy,'" he said.

Neal Rosen walks his dog Nika around Fern Street every day, but now he's more cautious than ever. "She's pretty young," Rosen said. "She's only nine months so we don't let her too far field regardless, particularly with a situation like this."

This was the second confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in the Bay Area since May. One cat ran down an alley between two apartment houses into a parking garage in Mountain View. It hid under a parked van, looking scared and confused.

The drought is most likely causing mountain lions to become bolder. "Animals are going to be more active right now, looking for food and looking for water. So just, you know, be aware always," Andrew Hughan of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said.

CDFW says that area of San Mateo County is a natural habitat for mountain lions and their prey.