Mama Bear and her Cub

Throughout this summer and fall, it's been amazing to see the mother bear and cub pair so frequently via my trail cams.

The cub who was so tiny at the start of the summer is looking so big and healthy now! She and her mom recently walked a bear trail in our neck of the woods, giving us a nice view of how big the cub is!

Here was mom as she passed the camera.

This is still mom, a step later.

Then, here is her cub. She is looking SO big!

The camera didn't catch the cub going over the fallen tree but I so enjoyed seeing her healthy!

We now have two bear families intensely using our neck of the woods. The other one is the mother with two cubs. I am hoping so strongly that one of these families chooses the den for this winter that I have staked out with a cam. These cubs will stay with their moms through the winter and early spring. So they will share dens with their moms!

I have some fun footage of the mother bear with the single cub at a water hole. I talked with a biologist about the fact that the bears love this absolutely horrendous smelling water hole so much. As one of you suggested a while ago, the biologist's first guess was that something in the water kills both external (e.g., ticks, fleas) and internal (e.g., intestinal) parasites. That might explain why it seems to be the favorite water hole of our bears every summer.

At this water hole, the bears make sure to get this water all over their bodies, including their heads, whenever they bathe there. You'll see that in the first 3/4 of the video. Then, later that evening, the pair visit a very clean water source. It's fun to see mom stop in a certain spot for a noisy drink, lapping up the cold water, and then her cub imitate her behavior so closely!

Here's the video. I hope that you all enjoy it either here or at Youtube.

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!

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.

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.

Happy Summer - Wildflowers and Bears!

Shyla and I have been loving our morning rides through wildflowers galore! However, I don't know what the look on her face in the next photo meant!

While it's still snowy and wintery up in the alpine zone, true early summer has arrived here with so many flowers that it blows my mind.

June is truly one of the best months here, if you're not bothered by the astronomical pollen counts. I get asthma and irritated eyes at this time of year but I wouldn't give up the flowers for anything.

It's also the time of year for bear "family breakup" when mother bears with yearling cubs send them away to live on their own. You might remember that we had a sow and two cubs in our neck of the woods last year. The little black cub got hurt, lost track of his family, and eventually was reunited with them in the fall. I assumed that he'd denned with them. Contrary to what I expected, every trail cam photo of that bear family shows that the black cub is not with the mother and the brown cub.

The mother is marking trees as if she's looking for a mate. It is possible that the black cub already left the family, following his instincts that it was time to go off on his own. However, the chocolate cub is staying close. Very soon, the mother will drive away the remaining cub when she meets a mate. That's the usual pattern, although this cub and mother seem extraordinarily bonded to me. Usually, by the cub's second spring, the cub and mother are not traveling so closely together.

Here's that mother marking a tree with her yearling cub standing behind her. This photo made me laugh.

I hope to have time to share the clips of video that I've captured of this pair this spring.

I love spring-summertime!!!

Fantastic Friday - A Reunion

Today, I just had to go check trail cameras to see if we'd gotten any glimpses of the bear family. The first photo I came upon was intriguing - an adult bear with a black cub. And, in subsequent photos after this pair had moved on, a chocolate cub ran past the camera so fast that he was a blur.

My heart started beating faster. I thought that, maybe just maybe, the bear family who had lost their black cub had reunited. I hopped on my bike and sprinted to another nearby camera.

The first photos were of the chocolate cub and mom walking very close together.

Mom forged ahead...

And then the chocolate cub walked almost on her heels. No sign of a black cub yet.

About 30 seconds later, a black cub passed the same camera. I literally let out a small whoop of happiness as I stared at the tiny image on the camera screen.

I believe that the family is reunited. One cub or the other lagging behind is normal... My only niggling question is whether it's conceivable that we have a second bear family in the forest with two different colored cubs (seems unlikely to me!). The reason why that question is bugging me is that I didn't think that the mother looked exactly like she has looked in the past. However, bears change fast at this time of year - getting fatter by the day and growing their winter coats.

For the moment, I am cautiously celebrating. Our little Braveheart is with her family!!!!!!

Shyla felt that such a monumental event was worthy of a treat party!

Happy Friday!

A Bear Family Saga

You might remember, back in May, that my trail camera spotted a mother bear and two cubs. One cub was chocolate and the other was black.

One very cool thing was that we watched this mother bear back when she was a yearling cub, separating from her mother. She has distinctively dark leg fur compared to her cinnamon body so I dubbed her "Socks". Her mother has disappeared (since last fall) so it's a consolation that her daughter, Socks, is carrying on the tradition. Female offspring, like Socks, always stay close to where they were born.

After that May sighting, Socks and her cubs were invisible from my trail cameras until August. In early August, a black cub appeared on a trail cam's video, limping very badly. No other bears, like his/her mom or sibling, appeared. You'll see that video as part of the larger video below.

I didn't want everyone else to worry like I was so I didn't share the injured cub video. I also didn't share the photos that I captured of Socks with one cub, the chocolate one, later in August.

 Here, they sniffed a tree together.

And, here, they sniffed another bear marking tree together.

I kept hoping that maybe the little black cub was just outside the view of the camera... but, then, even I started to lose hope in that possibility. I'd captured photos of them at 4 different sites, and the black cub was never with them.

Yesterday, I made a video combining all the trail camera footage of this family, and I ended it by expressing the hope that the little black cub would show up again. He sure looked spunky, despite his injury, in the early August video. I planned to share that video today.

But first, this morning, I decided to go to a popular bear hang-out to make one more check of whether the black cub had showed up. GUESS WHAT!!!! He did. He is still limping but he's weighting his bad limb (back right) a bit, and he wasn't using it at all on August 6. He's a couple of miles from his mom and sibling but he's within his mom's territory. There is still a chance that the family will reunite before they hibernate.

I don't have any great insight about what happened to his limb or how the family got separated. My first guess is always "hit by a car". However, I suppose that a predator or wandering dog could have hurt him. Perhaps he simply couldn't keep up with his mom after his injury, and she lost track of him. Those are all guesses. We'll probably never know what actually happened.

Without further ado, here is the video! If you have trouble viewing it here, you can watch it at Youtube.

I promise to keep you updated on any further glimpses of this family!!!

On the Homefront...

I see more signs of spring every day, including voles, flowers, and bears! R is the one who is most interested in voles. He sometimes digs so deep for them that his entire head, including his tongue, is covered in dirt when he finally emerges from the hole.

Recently, I went to visit a spot where orchids bloom most summers. I thought it was surely too early for them but I checked anyway. One was fully open and others were barely starting to open!!!!

Soon the entire patch will have these pink jewels blooming!

And then there are the bears. The males are doing their amazing tree marking dances, and I'll share videos of those soon. But, today's big trail camera surprise was a mother and two cubs. I have a trail camera pointed at a bear marking tree that has been very active recently. First, a male passed it twice, and then the mother marked it like crazy while her cubs milled around (and then climbed a tree).

I was surprised to see a mother bear with small cubs on the trail used by huge males. I would think that would be a big risk to the cubs.

I don't recognize the mother. She either just moved into the area or she's a youngster who has her first cubs.

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

Finding this bear footage this morning was a nice surprise. I had a horrific day yesterday. I simultaneously had horrendous pain in my leg due to my spine, a migraine, and a high fever. I collapsed into bed and, this morning, I fortunately woke up feeling about 70% better. And then these bear photos gave me another big boost!

Unexpected Guests

The resident black bears in our neck of the woods didn't have any cubs this year. But, we've had more than one sow bring cubs into our area during this period of fattening up by eating non-stop ("hyperphagia" - usually July and August, here). During this phase, mother bears, who have exceptionally high calorie needs, will go outside their normal territories in search of food.

This sow, who I haven't seen before, appeared by a bear tree a couple of weeks ago. One of her cubs was right next to her. It's amazing how different their coat colors are - I guess this cub looks like his/her father!

As mom kept walking, the first cub climbed the tree that has been marked by so many bears over the years.

As the black cub descended from the tree, a cinnamon-brown cub, whose coat resembled his mother's coat, moved into the picture. This cub had obviously been trailing behind his mom and sibling.

The black cub hustled to catch up with his mom but the cinnamon one explored a little. He sniffed a small aspen sapling.

Then, he sniffed a rock in front of the bear tree.

Finally, to my surprise, he tried to mark the bear tree like a big bear does!

Soon after marking the tree, he sprinted away to catch up with his family! I'm hoping that this family stays in the area for a little while, perhaps stopping to play in the spring where last year's cubs played so much! I can't wait to find out what happens!

A Magical Meeting with a Bear and her Cub

Shyla and I headed for a normal bike ride this morning, in sunshine and warmth. She was her usual happy self.

I started by taking a few photos of Shyla, like I usually do in the morning. Then, we set out to ride through a pine forest on a sinuous trail perched on a steep slope.

At the start of the trail, I heard some loud sounds of branches breaking, like there was a large animal right ahead of us. Just as I realized that we should probably stop, we rounded a curve in the trail - and I saw a mother bear and a cub very close in front of us.

They'd been lured to the area by the Buffalo Berries that I wrote about the other day. They are ripening now, and the bears seem to love them. There are many bushes of them in our neck of the woods.

I mentioned previously that I took a field course on bear behavior in Minnesota last summer. Today, all the things that I learned in that amazing course came into play.

The cub reacted to us by climbing the nearest Douglas Fir tree. The mother fled downhill and stopped about 15-20 yards away behind some low pine trees.

The mother then started vocalizing while standing still and watching me, Shyla, and her cub. Her vocalizations were not even slightly aggressive. Rather, she grunted to the cub repeatedly, just like I observed wild mother bears do last summer in MN. When a sow's cubs are in a tree, the sow often grunts to them from the ground.

However, this mother's grunts were interspersed with moans. I learned last summer that moaning is a sign of extreme anxiety and fear in a bear.

Fortunately, Shyla showed absolutely zero interest in going near the cub or the sow. She stood very close by my side.

I started talking to the sow, just like I heard my instructors talk to black bears last summer. Don't worry - I didn't believe that the bear understood my words but I wanted to display confidence and calm in my tone, to try to keep the sow calm. I told her in a soothing tone that I was going to leash my dog. Then, I calmly told her that I was going to take one photo of her cub. Finally, after what was probably only a minute but seemed like ten minutes, I told her that we were turning around and leaving.

As Shyla and I started to walk away (I had the leash in one hand and was pushing my bike with the other), the sow increased the cadence of her grunting to the cub. The cub immediately descended from the tree (we were only about 10 yards away) and ran downhill to his mother. Then, the two them seemed to vanish without a trace into the thick forest.

Here was the one photo that I took as I talked with the mother bear. Isn't that a beautiful cub? Look how big his/her ears are relative to his/her head. It's as if cubs are born with adult-sized ears and their heads have to grow into them.

I was never afraid. I knew how to act around a bear - and it seemed like my calm demeanor kept the whole situation calm. I don't think that I could have handled such a close-up encounter without being scared if I hadn't spent the time in Minnesota intensively studying bears last summer.

It was truly a magical experience that I'll never forget.

Wildlife on Sunday

Our wildlife are now into their mid-summer patterns, which means that I can see them almost anywhere. Shyla usually gives me the first hint that an animal has been someplace unexpected. She was definitely focused on something besides me for a while on our morning mountain bike ride. I kept an eagle eye on her for a while to make sure that she stayed nearby, and I never knew what caught her attention.

So, I visited some trail cameras after my ride with Shyla, and I discovered that a yearling cub is feeling his/her oats. I don't think that we've seen this bear in photos before.

The yearling arrived at a mangled bear marking tree and sniffed it.

Then, the little bear decided to try his back-rubbing moves. The white mark on the bear's chest plus the almost uniformly black fur differ from the other yearling we've seen on multiple occasions.

Just like the big bears, this yearling used a paw to grab the tree up behind his head, pulling it into his head for better marking.

Next, he started his shimmy moves, as he moved his back up and down in the tree trunk.

Finally, the yearling departed. Because the trail camera was pretty far from the tree, I am not certain whether this yearling was a male or female. Females stay near where they were born for their whole lives while males disperse and tend to move long distances each summer.

Just to give you perspective, here are photos of a big male (Milton Jr.) marking that same tree earlier this summer.

Milton Jr. was taller than the tree.

One piece of great news for the bears is that the Buffalo Berries are finally emerging. They usually appear in early July so they're about 3 weeks late. We have lots of Buffalo Berry bushes nearby. We know where these berry bushes are the densest, and we stay away for a few weeks each summer to let the bears forage in peace.

Last, but not least, the same trail camera has shown a bobcat carrying prey past it on multiple occasions over the past few weeks. In this photo, I believe she's carrying part of a rabbit. Repeatedly carrying prey in one direction usually means that a bobcat has kitten(s) stashed in a den. Like past years, we might get to see the kittens' maiden journeys with their mom!

Enjoy the remainder of the weekend!