Autumn Bear Escapades - including some funny mischief!

Autumn bluebird days make me smile! This meadow is just behind our house. I can't ride through it without stopping to gawk at the beauty.

Many autumns, our bears seem to go elsewhere, and I don't get many glimpses of them. This year is different, perhaps because bear foods have been so abundant here.

Some bears are still busy marking trees. I think that this might be our youngish female who I call "Dot" for a tiny white dot on her chest. She's marking a small tree that has nothing left but its trunk. All the branches have been ripped off by bears marking it.

Dot is not a big bear. It's amusing when the large males mark this one because the trunk reaches only to the middle of their backs.

One strategy that the huge males use is to squat down so that their back is at the right level for the tree trunk. Here's a large male marking it early this summer.

Indeed, we've had a large male around who might be "Tiny" although I'm not absolutely certain. He took a long bath in some of the yuckiest smelling water from a spring that flows into a muddy area. I can't believe that the bears like bathing in something so awful smelling. However, dogs like that particular spring too so I guess that we just can't understand the likes and dislikes of other species!

After the big bear bathed, he checked out the area around a marking tree. Then, later that night, he mauled a small bear marking tree. This tree still has branches but you can hear as he snapped some of them off as he attacked the tree.

Then, a couple of days later, a bear checked out a marking tree in close proximity to the spring and the other marking trees. This bear ended his visit by "rearranging" my trail camera. It's funny footage.

I hope that you enjoy this video of bear activity in autumn. You can watch it here or at Youtube.

I've realized that I want to finish showing you the best of the footage from the bear den, up until the date that the family departed in mid-May. My goal is to finish picking out the best clips and show them to you before our bears go into hibernation again. It made me laugh to realize how much I've stretched out the fun of looking closely at every clip. So, bear den videos will be coming!!!