A Bear Selfie!

I love it when animals interact with my trail cameras, even though it sometimes results in severe damage to the camera!

A black bear passing through our neck of the woods (not a long term resident bear) was examining a bear marking area when he noticed my camera. When watching the video, be sure that your audio is on so that you can hear him breathing and panting.

He seemed to look for food near the camera, and then he noticed the camera. He sniffed it, showed it his teeth, and then gave it a look. We got a closeup of his face and then his eye in the process!

After that, he headed over to the marking tree and left his "I was here" message.

It's just a simple little observation of a black bear living his life - but I love it!

You can watch the short video either here or at Youtube. I've made a pact with myself not to let any fun wildlife videos languish in my archives this year (unlike previous years). I hope that you enjoy them like I do!

I adore our bears. Their quirky personalities make me laugh regularly!

Tiny the Black Bear Survives a Stick Impaled in his Leg

Back in mid-May, I saw something disturbing on my trail cams. Tiny, one of our biggest male black bears, had a stick impaled in his hind leg. Look closely at his right hind leg/rump.

Then, two days later, he walked past with the stick gone but an obvious open wound.

At first, my footage of him showed no limp and plenty of energy. However, by 3 weeks later, he looked terrible. He'd clearly licked the area extensively and the fur there was very thin. He had a painstaking limp, and he was not marking trees that he'd normally mark dramatically.

I was worried. My guess was that he had an infection. I wished that I could somehow give him an antibiotic. I laughed at myself for even thinking such a thing.

Then, he disappeared for a full 8 days. That is extremely rare during mating season. I worried even more.

Then, to my utter delight, I found footage of him on a couple of cams. I could still see some evidence of thin fur on his hind end but it was already much better. It's molting season too which probably helped that to improve quickly. Plus, he was walking nearly normally, and he was marking trees again!

I made a video of the various stages of his saga. At the end, he was walking "normally". By that, I mean that he was walking like a bear near marking trees in mating season. He was using a gait sometimes called a "cowboy walk". It's a way of grinding his paws deep into the dirt to leave maximum scent from his paw pads.

Near the marking trees, there are bear tracks which are impressions of exactly where every mature bear who passes that spot places his/her paws. It's extremely hard to see or photograph but it's easy to feel. For a bear as big as Tiny, he has to shorten his stride to hit the right spots. Plus, he swings his hind legs out to the sides as he walks when he's in these tracks - the "cowboy walk".

After all that technical stuff, the main thing is how relieved I am that Tiny is okay. We have two main male bears in our neck of the woods, and they've ruled for about a decade, as far as I can tell. I'm glad that this spring was not the time that we lost one of them.

Here's the video.

I'm a very happy bear observer today!

A Mother Bear and her Cub

It is truly springtime here in the mountains, when the wildflowers bloom and the black bear cubs appear. I love this time of year more than any other!
At a secluded spot deep in the forest, a mother black bear and her solo cub have been staying near a spring with a bear marking tree next to it.

These are photos taken of the pair just a few days ago. Mom checked a bear marking tree with her cub in tow.

Then, they turned and went the other way. Solo cubs are fairly rare, and mothers taking cubs to marking trees during mating season is also rare. I really hope that the single cub is nursing enough to prevent the mother from going into estrus. That has happened occasionally - and the mother mates again, often to the detriment of the solo cub who might get lost or hurt during the process.

Pushing aside those worries, my cams caught delightful footage of this pair at a spot where there is a bear marking tree and a spring right next to each other. I have two cams there, one pointed at each spot.

First, you'll see the cub arrive at the bear marking tree. It is comical how tiny the cub is compared to the bears who mark the tree. Many of them are taller than the tree itself!

Then, you'll see mom taking a bath about 10 yards away. As mom bathed, something spooked the cub who then climbed the tree that my cam is mounted on. After the mother finished bathing, she first examined the cam closely - making me momentarily scared that she was going to attack it like Bandit did with another cam.

Then, mom started calling the cub down from the tree with soft grunts.  Be sure to have your volume turned up so that you can hear these sounds that humans very rarely get to hear!

Enjoy the video either here or at Youtube.

I hope that seeing black bears going about their everyday lives makes you smile like I do!

P.S. The cam that Bandit appeared to have destroyed was fixed by the trail cam company for a low cost. That made me smile too!

Bandit the Black Bear Demolishes my Trail Camera

Our young male black bear was drinking from a spring when he noticed my trail camera. Unfortunately, unlike many bears, he didn't just sniff it. He killed it!

When I arrived at the site, I saw my cam broken into two pieces, a padlock pried open, and the front part of the camera on the ground. At first, I was furious, thinking that a bad human had done it. Then, I noticed that the memory card was still in the camera, and that made me think that maybe it wasn't a human who destroyed it.

Indeed, the memory card showed that "Bandit", the young male bear who I introduced you to yesterday had attacked the camera. I felt so much better that a bear had destroyed the camera rather than a human. After all, I put my trail cams right in the midst of where bears live out their lives - so this type of thing is expected. Young ones like Bandit get curious, and they use their strength to fully investigate a camera. It was my mistake not to have the camera in a bear case.

Bandit

The trusty camera kept recording video until the "end".  The two parts in the photo below were attached to each other before the cam was attacked... I wish that I'd thought to take a photo of the camera at the scene but I was a little too rattled to remember to do that.

Here's the video of Bandit killing the camera (from the camera's point of view) plus a video of him attempting the same thing with another camera on a snowy day a couple of weeks later. I think that bear security cases are becoming essential due to this youngster!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

It's rather shocking and scary to see Bandit's teeth attacking the camera from the point of view of the camera. I am generally not worried about bears when I'm in the forest because they are so timid. This video gave me some idea of the power they possess. We are lucky that they are normally timid!

A Bear Who Earned the Name "Bandit"

While we were innocently playing around in the desert, a certain bear was plotting revenge for my "spying" on him with my trail cameras. But, we had no idea...

We were so relaxed, having no idea what might be underway at home.

It turned out that a youngish male bear was visiting areas where my trail cameras are located. I got fun video of one of his silly attempts to mark a tree. Milton also marked the same tree, which gives you a chance to compare a mature dominant male bear to a young adult male bear who really doesn't stand a chance of competing (yet).

It turned out that Bandit's mischief was expensive to me. I discovered it today, and I'll get to work on a video to share it with you. I'll give you the hint that I gave him the name "Bandit" after finding his handiwork today.

For now, here's an introduction to Bandit. He's a silly youngster who isn't very good at marking trees yet and isn't anywhere near as strong or skilled as a bear like Milton.

If you have trouble watching the short video here, check it out on Youtube.

Tomorrow, I hope to show you why I decided to name him "Bandit".

On another note, I've had a lot of trouble getting caught up with my work since getting home. I hope to catch up with all of you very soon! My apologies for being so slow.

The Last Bear of 2016!

Our last bear wandered the paths in our forest in early December. Now, he's gone to bed just like all his brethren.

I have footage of his last days of wandering. It's remarkable how slowly he was moving as his metabolism wound slowly down toward hibernation.

Early on 12/3, he started walking on bear trails, albeit very slowly. I first picked up his image at a bear-marking tree. He sniffed it...

... and sniffed it some more.

Before leaving, he showed us the snow matted in his rump. I think he'd been sitting someplace for a while before he walked to this tree.

Just a little later, I found his tracks. On this remote road, he loped along the left edge, I rode my snow bike in the middle, and a rabbit hopped along the right of the road. We all left our tracks.

I captured video footage of this bear at several sites over the next 36 hours. He visited several bear-marking trees and then came to my house! That made me laugh after I'd had fun tracking him the previous day.

We have a bear-proof bird feeder that the local bears all know is truly bear-proof and rarely visit. I don't think that this bear was a local bear so he spent a long time on his hind paws staring up at the food over his head. His slow pre-hibernation behavior was markedly different from the behavior of the only other bear who visited back in May.

I hope that you enjoy the video!

Bathing Bears in August 2016

August is characterized by heat and gorging for bears. During breaks in eating a zillion calories per day, they like to take baths in pools of water.

The particular pool of water that I will show you today is so popular with bears that I try to stay away from it for long periods of time so that I don't accidentally scare any bears.

I love the way that bears roll around in the water and particularly like to clean their faces with their huge paws.

You'll see two bears separately visit the pool. I think that one is "Dot", a smallish female who has frequented this area for a few years. She is very sure of herself, even marking the "bear tree" that is next to the pool. The other bear must be a newcomer to the area. That bear is bigger than Dot but didn't mark any trees. Also, s/he was spooked enough to sprint away from the pool on two occasions.

Enjoy the video, either here or on Youtube!

Although no pairs of bears have shown up at the water holes, it has been a unique summer because I have captured numerous photos of pairs of adult bears traveling together. I have read about this occurring in other regions but I've never seen it here. I suspect that these pairs were mating pairs back in June, and are comfortable with foraging together later in the summer because food is SO abundant this year. That is pattern that has been observed by Lynn Rogers at the Wildlife Research Center in MN.

Here are a couple of examples for you.

Socks' Brother and an unknown bear

It's so cool that my trail cams can give us such unique views into these reclusive animals' lives! I've seen bears in person this year out in the forest but I've only seen their rumps as they sprint away from me.

Our Bear Family - A cub rescue by Mom

I captured video the other day showing just how well our bear cub family is doing now. Mom looks fat and healthy, and the cubs are huge! It's so much fun to have followed them from the day of their birth until now.

Today, I'm sharing a bit more of the footage from the den. This footage was from 4/25/16. The cubs had stayed up the entire previous night playing in the den. By 5AM, they were outside the den again, playing and exploring. Just in case I have any sticklers for detail reading this, please note that all times are Standard Time because I couldn't go to the cams to change the time when we switched to DST. That's why it was light at 5 AM (MST).

The cubs were trying to expand their world, venturing further from the den entrance by climbing on the piles of fallen trees all around their den. When my friend and I visited to the den for the last time in March, we guessed that the cubs would start going above the den so we placed a trail cam there. It captured the panic of the little black female cub when she wasn't sure how to get down to the den entrance.

During this mini-crisis, you'll be able to hear both cubs screaming (the chocolate one was hanging onto his mom's leg during the rescue) and you'll be able to hear the soft grunts of their mom, trying to verbally calm them.

Getting a glimpse into such intimate bear family life is a gift. After you see how mom nurtured and protected her cubs from the beginning, you can understand why she stands her ground against all threats to her cubs later in the summer. One summer, this same sow ("Mabel") bluff charged me numerous times when I accidentally rode into the middle of the family. She escorted me away from the tree where the cubs were stashed, while bluff charging me at least 10 times, slapping her front paws on the ground, and snorting. I knew that I'd be fine as long as I walked calmly away from the cubs - which I did!

Here's the video of the cub rescue way back on 4/25/16, when the family was still living in and around the den. You can watch it here or at Youtube.
Tomorrow, I hope to show you footage of the family from a few days ago. At first, I thought that the cubs were yearlings because they have suddenly grown so fast! It makes me smile!

The Bad Humans and the Cute Bear Cubs

On my first bike ride after returning home, I found a scene that made my blood boil. It was on a short forest road that I use to access some other places but "campers" have discovered it in recent years.

They are not classic campers but people who choose to live in filth in the forest. They call themselves "travelers", "crusty kids", or a host of other names. They set up huge encampments. I was the first to find this one so they weren't aggressive toward me. They ignored me. That included the guy passed out on the road and the girl who had a needle in her arm.

This was the scene at one tent site two days ago. That's a pile of junk on the left and a tent. There was porn and food all over the ground. Since then, a couple more tarp shelters have been built in this spot.

Just across from that tent, there was a pile of garbage. It was horrifying, including household stuff, clothing, a barbie doll, a weed wacker, a computer printer, and food remains. A neighbor went into the area last evening, and his photos show this pile to be substantially bigger already. He was aggressively harassed by the "campers" who literally forced him out of the area.

Here was the main camping area. I couldn't show the many tents and tarp shelters but there were probably five. There are even more today.

A girl had a needle in her arm, as you can barely make out in this photo. They ignored me the whole time because no officers had been there yet to investigate.

Now, the situation is explosively tense because officers have been to the area many times since it was discovered. The "campers" are gathering more and more of their cohorts to join the site. They are preventing everyone but them from using this section of forest or the forest road that they are on. I am too scared to go near the area.

I've been working tirelessly contacting authorities, writing letters, and networking to try to get this site shut down. I'd like it to be permanently shut down with a big gate blocking vehicle access to the area but I may be dreaming too big.

Thank goodness that there was footage on my trail cams to make me smile and laugh in light of the terrible situation relatively nearby. Mabel (our den sow) and her cubs are together, despite that scared cub video that we saw recently.

Here they are near our house.

Mabel's mange has healed well, and her two cubs are looking healthy.

I also got video of Dot and her cub at a bear tree, which the cub seemed to think was a jungle gym. And, I got the first footage of Mabel with her cubs in a watering hole!!! I hope that you enjoy the video as much as I did. You can watch it here or at Youtube.

Now, let's all hope that the bear family does NOT go near those awful "campers" despite the food that is lying on the ground all over the area. If only law enforcement would just take action, we wouldn't have a dark cloud hanging over our neck of the woods.

More Bear Den Fun and Games

Today, I am sharing another installment of the bear family at their den in late April. That was the time frame when the cubs became mobile. They weren't climbing big trees yet but they seemed to love playing with each other and "bouldering" on the small rocks and fallen trees near the den entrance.

The cubs have absolutely incredible energy levels!

I can see what a big difference it makes to have a sibling. Several sows in our neck of the woods have only one cub this year. I bet that being a bear mom is a lot harder with a solo cub!

The cubs did not only play during the day. They played all night too! They'd take short naps when my cams would pick up no activity but then start again within an hour or so. Here they were at 11:30 at night!

The chocolate male cub was working on pulling himself up onto a branch while his sister watched.

Poor mom got no sleep. She stayed in the den with her eyes open all the time that the cubs played at night.

I am including a video to show the cubs playing. It also shows mom taking a walk and coming back with a single pine branch. It seemed bizarre to see her carefully pull the branch into the den with her. I've always thought that the floor of the den looks like a very hard surface to spend an entire winter lying on. There's not much forest duff to drag into the den to make a soft bed. But I hardly think that one pine branch would help much!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube. Enjoy!

Bathing Bears!

At 3AM, I was awakened by Shyla. Her body was jerking as her muscles spasmed rhythmically. They'd spasm and then release, about 20 times per minute. It was not a seizure because Shyla was fully conscious, responding to me, and able to walk. I got her up and walked her around, and the "jerking" stopped while she walked. Then, it restarted when she laid down on a dog bed. I kept walking her around, and then letting her lie down, hoping that the jerking would go away for good. It didn't after about an hour of this routine.

So, we got to drive to the Emergency Vet at 4AM this morning. Fortunately, the jerking finally stopped on the way to the vet. The vet didn't know why it had happened but sent us home with the instructions to video it if it happened again. It hasn't happened again so perhaps it was a one-time thing. I hope so.

Today is the anniversary of the deaths of two of our dogs, K (4 years ago) and Acadia (13 years ago). My heart really didn't need to start the day in the vet hospital with Shyla. At least we weren't in the same room where K took her last breath - a small blessing.

So, it comes as no surprise that I am still not feeling well - probably due to the accumulated stress from the fire plus our foray to town at 4AM. Sorry this post is so late - I'm at half speed today.

To cheer myself up, I made a fun video of some bears playing in a spring on the 4th of July. There's nothing that I love more than seeing bears take baths - they make me laugh! Plus, both of the sows who bathed have cubs so I bet that we'll get to see the cubs play in the water pretty soon!

Here's a photo of one mother bear arriving at the spring with her cub in tow. Her cub didn't bathe but you can hear the mother bear grunt to call her cub at one point in the video.

Here's the video which you can watch here or at Youtube.

I will soon show you a video of Socks, our former lost yearling cub, hanging out with the big males of our territory during mating season. She's now about 5 years old so it makes sense that she may be about to have her first litter of cubs. I am overjoyed that we'll probably get to see Socks raise cubs next year. Here's a photo of Socks, which should remind you of why I named her Socks (her black legs)!

I believe that Socks is Cinnamom's daughter, a bear who long-time readers may remember. If you search for "Cinnamom" within this blog, you'll find lots of posts about her and her cubs. Cinnamom was killed by authorities late in 2014. If you look at the old posts, she already had a strike against her as shown by her ear tags. A "strike" means that she went too close to humans or human residences. A bear with ear tags doesn't get much leeway from the authorities, and thus, Cinnamom is gone.

I love having the daughters of bears who I adored watching carry on their traditions - like Socks is doing for her mom, Cinnamom. Similarly, Shyla is carrying on the traditions of our previous female Labs who died on this date, Angel K and Angel Acadia.

A wild afternoon in April at the bear den

I'm spending one afternoon per week going through the 150 GB of footage from the bear den this spring. April 24th was a day of constant play with careful supervision by mom. I already showed you some footage from earlier that day.

I liked this part of the footage because the video shows the sincere respect the cubs have when mom tells them to "behave themselves". From the video that is in this post, I know that mom was reprimanding the chocolate cub at this instant.

The chocolate cub, a male, leaned backwards away from her, obviously a tiny bit scared of her very understated wrath.

After the chocolate cub went off to play, the black cub (who I think is a female), snuggled up to mom's snout. The black cub was usually the wild one (and the "troublemaker" as one of you said) but not during the footage from around 3 PM on 4/24.

At this point, the bear family still had a few more snowstorms standing between them and leaving the den a month later. Also, it is critical that the cubs are agile climbers when they leave the den. As you'll see in future installments, the cubs started climbing tall trees in May, getting ready for the day that their mom led them off into the forest.

I hope that you enjoy the video. I sure am loving watching the clips and getting a secret glimpse into the lives of a bear family. I suspect that this past winter will be one that I remember for a very long time due to the bear family!

You can watch this video at Youtube if there's a problem with it here.

P.S. Do you have ideas for names for the male chocolate cub and probably female black cub?

Fun and Games by the Bear Cubs in April!

Remember the bear den, where a sow spent the winter and gave birth to two cubs? I finally found some time to peruse more of the footage. After the huge snowstorm around April 17 that kept them inside the den for four days, the cubs were ready to play!

However, mom wasn't ready to stop supervising.

Learn to climb is one of the most important things that cubs must learn before they can leave the den. This little guy was trying to make it up onto the fallen tree that his mom was standing on but he was having trouble. He looks like a little monkey!

The video is full of fun footage of the two cubs playing and of mom occasionally grabbing them by the scruff of the neck to pull them back into the den. The footage is all from 4/24. I think that the sow was nervous because it was exceptionally windy, which limited her ability to hear predators approaching.

Enjoy the video, either here or at Youtube!

Have a happy and safe weekend.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

The beauty of this season astounds me.

Wild Roses...

A bear named "Socks" for her black legs who I've known since she was a cub and is now on the mating path... (see post from five years ago when Socks was driven away from her mom). I will show you videos in the coming days showing that Socks will probably be having Tiny's cubs this winter (Tiny is our huge male bear). We are seeing the circle of life from cub to mother.

 But, to my eye, none of the beauty surpasses the happy face of Shyla in a field of wildflowers.

What a time of year!

Tiny the Black Bear - Marking and Mischief

There's so much going on at home that I'm going to step away from the desert trip for a moment to give you a bear update.

You may remember Tiny, the biggest male black bear I've ever seen, who rules our neck of the woods during mating season (usually around June). We caught our first glimpses of him on 5/25, when he trekked many miles marking every black bear "whammy" tree in the area. I have video cams at most of those trees so I got some fun footage plus some still photos.

He came back a few days later to discover that all his amorous messages had gone unanswered, except for a response from a bobcat who leaped onto a tree that Tiny had marked. Then, the bobcat rolled around at the foot of the tree, leaving his own scent mark.

It is fascinating to me that different species respond to each other's scent messages. I've learned from experience to go look when Shyla marks a certain spot. On more than one occasion, I've found that she had the audacity to pee over top of a mountain lion's scrape! I guess that it's good to listen to your dog if you want to know what's been happening in the forest around you.

When Tiny returned to the most important marking tree to discover that no sows had left replies and that a BOBCAT had answered his messages, he seemed to get mad. He attacked my camera, believe it or not! The camera endured the attack but Tiny left it pointed the wrong way after he finished sniffing and clawing it.

The compilation of these videos reinforces for me the fact that fascinating animal communication is happening in the forest around us, although we usually have no idea of what is being said. You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

I still haven't captured any trail cam footage of the sow and cubs who were in "my" den this winter. Very soon, I will go peek to see if they are still near the den. If they're not, I will bring home all the footage of mom and tiny cubs from the winter and spring.

Have a Beary Happy Tuesday!

Milton the Black Bear Returns for 2016!

While we relaxed in the desert, about 4 different black bears showed up on my trail cameras. Today, I want to share just the footage of "Milton", a long-lived and big male black bear who I've watched for years.

In the spring of 2013, he badly injured himself, and I feared that we'd never see him again. I was wrong. He disappeared for a while. He played very little role in the 2014 mating season - he didn't appear marking trees on Black Bear Trail. However, last year, he returned, looking stronger than ever!

The first glimpse of him this year was marking a tree on Black Bear Trail several miles from our house. He is a big and strong bear!

In the next couple of hours, he walked the miles to our house and showed up to work on how to pull down our bear-proof birdfeeders. I had a trail camera that shoots video pointed at the birdfeeding station that caught all his antics. You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

He didn't gain anything from all that effort. In fact, there was no food hanging up high on the feeding station. However, he did leave the pole leaning rather obviously in one direction. I think that the bird feeding station's inventor, the Runner, won this round but I also think that Milton is getting closer to a solution! The battle goes on!

None of the bears photographed by my trail cams have been the sow and cubs from the den yet. To make absolutely sure that I don't upset that bear family, I'm waiting a little longer before I go get the memory cards from the cams at their den.

While Milton worked on our birdfeeding station, we were oblivious because we were in the desert. Normally, we would've been out chasing a bear away after the dogs started barking at him. Instead, we were enjoying this quiet faraway campsite...

There were no bears at this campsite although lizards skittered around all the rocks!

Newborn Bear Cubs!!!

I finally found uninterrupted time to put together a video to show the exciting action at the bear den.

All through the winter until 1/14, the bear ate snow only twice, both times by reaching her head outside the den to take a bite or two of the snow on the ground.

On 1/14, things changed. She began eating snow at least once per day. She wiggled so that her head reached further outside the den, day by day.

Then, on 1/30, she was a restless bear. Her head was visible in the den entrance almost all day.

She ate snow many times. Twice, she walked outside the den. Each walk was only about 6-8 ft in distance but it was an odd departure from her behavior earlier in the winter.

On the night of 1/30, she seemed not to sleep. She looked outside the den, and seemed to toss and turn until our last video clip at around 11 PM. After that, she was deep in the den, and there were no visible movements to trigger the cams.

The next morning dawned with incredible winds. The tree holding the cams swayed in the wind, which triggered a cam to record video and audio. The audio told the story - cubs had been born, probably very early in the morning of 1/31!!!!!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube. Make sure that your sound is turned ON!!! The bawling of the cubs tells you the most exciting part of the story!

I don't know when we'll get to see the cubs for the first time. Their mom was impregnated last May or June. The cells divided a few times, and then remained in suspended animation as balls of cells. Because the sow was fat and healthy when she entered the den, the balls of cells implanted in the uterine wall and began to develop into cubs.

The cubs were about 1 pound in weight when they were born. They spend almost all their time latched onto a nipple, nursing. They bawl when they lose their grip on the nipple or are not covered by mom so they get cold.

The sow and cubs will undoubtedly stay near the den into the spring, until the cubs are mobile and can climb trees to flee predators. I'm incredibly excited about getting to watch the cubs via my cams this spring!

Activity at the Bear Den in late January

I've had the bear den on my mind, where surprising activity has occurred this winter. I'm going to let the story unfold for you a little at a time. The bear never left the den until near the end of January. Earlier in the winter, the bear occasionally ate snow by reaching outside the den and biting into the snow that was within reach.

Then, the bear had a couple of very restless days, walking outside the den to eat snow. We saw a little activity like this back in 2010, the last time this den was occupied but not so early in the winter.

At about 10 AM on 1/30, the bear first decided to leave the den.

The bear traveled only about 6'. You can see the rings around the bear's eyes - those are probably due to mange, which is common in hibernating bears. When a bear turns down its metabolism, the immune system also slows down, allowing mange to take hold. Those of you who followed this blog 6 years ago probably remember that the sow who used this den in 2010 had mange.

This bear also has a scrape near the mange on the nose. I'm guessing it's from scratching at the mange.

After walking just a few steps and pausing, the bear turned around to head back into the den.


Look at how fat and healthy this bear is. And look at that coat!

On the same day, the bear was out again after noon, doing another walk of a few steps. She stuck her tongue out for the camera.

Aside from the mange, this bear looks super healthy with lots of fat and a very thick coat!

Less than two minutes later, the bear was squeezing back into the den, despite the balmy 46°F temperature.

I'll share more photos and videos in the coming days and weeks. The camera also recorded video which is very fun to see and hear! Do you have any ideas about why a bear would suddenly become restless in the middle of winter, taking small walks outside the den? We know that no animals went near it, except for one squirrel, so the bear wasn't disturbed.

Obviously, bears do not sleep soundly all winter long, unlike common lore. Lots of researchers have shown just how awake bears actually are but none as clearly as Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, who put cameras inside bear dens to record the bear's behavior throughout the winter a few years ago.

Knowing that our wildlife is flourishing in the forest makes me smile. I love thinking of this bear curled up snug in the den.