A mother bear and her cub visit watering holes

Every summer, my trail cameras give us glimpses into the everyday lives of mother bears and their cubs when they're not near humans. They are just going about their everyday lives - and it's a thrill to get to see them.

This one is from almost exactly one year ago. Like mother, like daughter. Mom was marking a tree and her cub seemed to be trying to imitate her!

Recently, our local mother-cub pair has been visiting watering holes. You might remember the first footage of them at a watering hole. The cub got spooked and spent almost the whole time high in a tree.

Now, the cub is getting the idea of how nice it is to soak in cool water on a hot day. When they first arrived at a watering hole, the cub watched mom soaking in the water. Eventually, the cub got into the water.

This watering hole was where Bandit demolished a trail camera of mine (which I just received back from Reconyx - fixed!). Now, the trail camera is inside a "bear security box". Mom decided to check it out but did nothing but sniff it.

I hope that you enjoy this footage as much as I did! It's also available at Youtube if you run into trouble watching it here.

Watching mother bears with their cubs shows me that these animals have wonderful secret lives that many people never get to see.