Sunsets and Bear Cubs

I've been enjoying summer time with my pups and watching our bears. Here, the Duo watched the sun set with me.

A pair of Night Hawks nest yearly somewhere close to where we watch the sunset. They glide and swoop over our heads, letting out squeaking noises as they snag insects out of the air. The Duo don't seem to notice but I do. K and I watched the nighthawks last summer on many evenings - another good memory. Now I'm making new good memories with the Duo.

This was the view after the sun finally dipped below the mountains. Ah, I love summertime.

In the bear world, mating season has come to an abrupt halt. The reason probably is that their favorite foods are maturing and ripening. It's time for bears to eat and eat and eat. Over the next couple of months, they'll eat 10's of thousands of calories very day. It's rather stunning when I realize that an animal as big as a bear can eat all the calories that s/he needs for an entire year within the course of a couple of months.

Buffalo Berries

As the mating season has ended, the mothers with cubs are emerging from hiding. More than one family has visited this spring but I'll show you just one visit today, saving the other one for another video. Here are the two cubs who we've seen before.

The family first visited the base of a bear marking tree and then moved onto a nearby pool of water fed by a spring. The cubs are very cute! You can watch their activities here or at Youtube.

Since this mother bear is around my area a lot, I'd like to give her a name to make it easier to talk about her. I believe that she's the mother of "Socks", the young bear with black legs and a cinnamon body who we see photos of regularly. Do you have any ideas for a name?

Bears, Shyla, and Mystery Birds

I can't take my mind away from the bears who I observed on my trip. Like the bears here, they were transitioning from mating season into their "hyperphagia" season, when they eat relentlessly, up to 20,000 Calories per day. This bear was eating...

One of the foods that the bears were eating was wild strawberries. They are ripening here at home now too. Indeed, today during my bike ride, I ate some of them. They are super sweet and delicious but incredibly hard to find, pick, and eat. In five minutes, I ate about five of the berries.

They are tiny, and I'm guessing that they hold maybe one Calorie per berry. Can you imagine how much hard work goes into getting 20,000 Calories from berries? And, in the case of this bear who I observed, she had to forage and spend a good chunk of her day nursing her cubs. It's a tough, hard-working, life.

In the next photo, she wasn't acting aggressive or angry. Rather, she was scenting the air while in the midst of panting. Bears cool themselves primarily by panting, much like our dogs. Look at the size of her nose. She must have a great sniffer!

On these summer days, the only time that our dogs are outdoors and not panting is when the sun is low in the sky or when they are lazing around in the shade. Here was Shyla last night, very curious about the smells wafting up from a canyon at sunset. So many animals explore the world via scent, unlike us humans.

Her eyes seemed to almost pop out of her head. I wished that I could smell what was so interesting.

Bye bye sun! The next photo shows a funny habit of Shyla's as the sun drops below the mountains. She does the same thing when I arrive home and enter via the basement. She sits at the top of the stairs and waves to me as I climb the steps to see her. What a funny and cute girl!

Those photos were from last night's sunset. Alas, Shyla isn't feeling well today, with diarrhea that's left her feeling tired. The Runner took a fecal sample to the vet this morning but they didn't tell us the results before they closed for the weekend. So, now, we're "winging it", trying to help Shyla feel better without the guidance of our vet. Don't worry, if she doesn't perk up, we'll go to the emergency vet. However, I'm not happy with our vet hospital for forgetting about Shyla after how many times we talked with them this morning.

I went on a solo bike ride today, and I need some help identifying some birds. I found them on a small pond that has *never* had waterfowl on it in all the years that I've watched it. They swam around happily, never fishing or eating.

My research about what wild bird species this is suggests that the "Snow Goose" is the only real possibility. However, it's extremely rare around here. Why would three suddenly show up on a small pond in mid-summer? And, these are not a perfect match for the descriptions of a Snow Goose.

As I headed to the shore to get a closer look at the birds, they actually swam toward me like they were unafraid. Then, I stumbled over a bucket of tan granular stuff, with one wormy creature on top of the stuff, on the shore where these birds had obviously hung out earlier (there were feathers all around it). Hmm, the plot thickens...

If that's the case, I hope that they can evade predators, because there are lots and lots of them near that pond. I know that for a fact from my trail cameras in that general vicinity.

Does anyone know what kind of birds these are? I'd be grateful for any hints!

Happy Solstice!

Happy Solstice to everyone. This photo is from sunset last night, which was so very late!

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it means that daylight lasts longer today than any other day of the year. For our friends in the Southern Hemisphere, the tide is turning - your days will now get longer! So, I think it's a good day for all of us.

It's a good day for Shyla, who is feeling better, after her diarrhea stress-reaction to a visit to town earlier this week. She went to my PT clinic with me yesterday, and even though that involved going into town, her tummy is better. Moreover, she seemed very happy at the clinic.

Today, I checked some trail cameras, and I bring good tidings. We have another mother bear in the forest, and this one has two rambunctious cubs.The two cubs were very curious about a bear marking tree that huge males, at least twice as tall as the standing cubs, have marked several times this summer. You can see that the top of the pine sapling is broken off. The adult male bears who mark this tree are taller than the sapling!

The family spent a long time in front of this cam and the one that is pointed at a water hole. I'll have a video of the cuteness soon!

Several of you have asked if I worry about the dogs chasing bears. You might notice in photos that both dogs wear bells. Since we started that tradition almost a decade ago, we've had no close calls with dogs and bears. Even though I am fairly confident that I could call the dogs away from a bear, I'd prefer not to put the bears (and me) through that stress or have the dogs lead a chasing bear back to me. To avoid dog-bear encounters, I also choose the places where I take the dogs very carefully. I've never taken a dog to the place shown in the photos above - I view it as a pristine place for the wildlife.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm always trying to balance letting my dogs be able to romp with the needs of the wildlife.

Happy Solstice!

P.S. I just learned that today was "Fight like a Frenchie" day for our pal, Benny, a French Bulldog who was just diagnosed with cancer in his liver. We send him and his family the Power of the Paw. To Benny and his family - cherish every day and live it to the fullest - take your inspiration from K, like I did. We're thinking of you.

See Beautiful: Dogs, Sunsets, Flowers, and Bears

As many of you know, I find incredible beauty in my dogs and in nature. For "See Beautiful", I'll share a few of the beautiful things that I've witnessed recently, from my Duo at sunset, to wildflowers, to natural bear behavior. I know that many people are afraid of bears - but I find them to be the most beautiful souls among our wildlife.

The two pups and I enjoyed a sunset hike recently, bathing in the soft sunlight at the end of the day. They both looked equally enthralled with a scent near the start of the hike.

Then, Shyla told R a secret. I'm not sure what it was but R had a mischievous look in his eyes.

We made it to our sunset lookout point in time to see the sun barely dip below the Divide.

And, then, the sun slipped lower, and the light faded as the Rocky Mountains blocked it.

On top of the smoke in the air from the horrific fire south of us, our pine trees have decided to release their pollen, right now! When I look into the distance, I can literally see waves of green pollen blowing off the trees. If I touch a tree, I get fine green particles all over me. It affects me mildly, giving me a sore throat and some asthma. R is our worst allergy sufferer. He gets itchy all over and can get secondary infections from skin, ear, and eye irritation. He's on his allergy meds now, and they seem to be working so far, even though I can see a layer of pollen stuck to his outer fur.

Tis the season! I won't complain. We have glorious flowers and wonderful cooler weather. Here's a close-up of an Iris petal - like a landing strip for pollinating insects!

And, my favorite animals, the black bears, are delighting me with their antics. They are marking trees, and the mother and her single cub are playing in front of my cameras. It will be interesting to see what happens with that mother because, sometimes, nursing one cub is not enough to prevent a bear sow from going into estrus. Then, odd scenarios occur - some sad and some interesting. In the best case scenario, the mother will mate but also stay with her cub from this year. So far, although the mother has been on the "mating route" where the marking trees are, she hasn't expressed interest in them.

Here's a video that includes both tree-marking and the mother-cub pair playing in a ditch filled with water. I'm discovering that this ditch is very popular, and I repositioned the camera so that future videos will be looking down at the water from a high view.

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

On the bear front, one thing is worrying me. Our main male, Milton, has had a serious limp for almost 2 months. I haven't captured a trail camera photo of him in about two weeks, which is unprecedented during bear mating season. I am concerned that he might have been supplanted by the big male who you saw in the video. To be honest, I'm a little concerned about whether Milton is still alive. I'll be watching my cameras for a glimpse of him.

Bear foods are progressing too. These are chokecherry blossoms, which will turn into berries after they are pollinated. They are a favorite food of bears!

I hope that you've seen the summertime beauty in this post that I feel. I am awed by the gorgeous world around me.

This is part of the See Beautiful Blog Hop, sponsored by our friend Sugar.

Life of Bears

After the last time that I posted about bears, a couple of you asked about whether my dogs tangle with our wildlife. The short answer is that we have an occasional scare but it's very rare. I tend to manage our dogs' off-leash time carefully. There are certain areas where I'd never let our dogs off-leash, like the areas that the bears frequent. That's why many of my photos of the dogs are in open areas... where our largest mammals (black bears and mountain lions) don't visit much.

An occasional danger in open areas is coyotes but I do my best to keep our dogs out of those areas at the times of day when a coyote pack might be around. When the dogs are off-leash in the meadows that coyotes frequent, we practice stays and recalls before I let them romp.

At this time of year, I sometimes take Shyla for mountain bike rides in pine forests, to keep her out of the warm sun as she runs. I've been monitoring our wildlife long enough to know which parts of the pine forests are wildlife "hot spots" and which ones are safer. I stick to the safer ones, for the sake of Shyla and the wildlife.

With all of the training that I do with our dogs plus choosing where they can be off leash with deference to the wildlife, I hope that I am striking a balance between happy dogs and happy wildlife.

Today, while checking trail cameras, I found the most beautiful clip of video. It's our first bear cub sighting of the year! You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

I believe that the mother bear is Mabel, an experienced mother bear who has raised lots of cubs while I've been watching our bears. I've never known her to have just one cub before. I wonder if a cub was out of view of the camera. Or, perhaps something has gone awry for Mabel early this summer. Time will tell whether there was a cub just barely out of view of the camera.

You also saw that a big male is out marking trees. He is Milton, a big male with a white blaze on his chest. It turns out that he's the one with the injured right front leg. You can see him limping on it although it is a bit difficult to pick out. When a bear has just marked a tree, they do a "cowboy walk" afterwards, swinging their hind legs out to the side and stomping the ground as they depart. The cowboy walk is super obvious after Milton marks trees.

I adore our bears, and I was SO thrilled to see the first cub of the year! I also saw one of their foods starting to mature - Pin Cherry blossoms! I think that this summer will be much easier on the bears than last summer, when food was scarce.