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!

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.

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!!!

Fox in the Bear Den & First Cub Sighting

Back to the bear den -- all was quiet throughout March except that a red fox visited the bear den. He appeared to be attracted by the sound of the cubs crying. He stared at the entrance, taking a step or two toward it, and then backing off. When he got close to the entrance, the cubs went silent. He did that for 7 minutes!

Finally, he basically crawled into the den, with only his tail sticking out. I heard no sounds from the sow - no snorts or snarls. When the fox finally emerged, he did NOT have a cub in his mouth. I suspect that the sow hid the cubs under her and had a silent standoff with him.

Then, nothing much happened (the bears were snuggled in the den) until 4/10 - the day that the cubs decided that they wanted to go outside the den. However, mom didn't agree and kept pulling them back in. Here she is, resting between the 43 attempts that I counted of the cubs trying to escape!

All of this is included in a short video. You can watch it here or at Youtube. Although the scene appears quite bright through the trail cam lens - the lights were only infrared so the animals couldn't see them.

I sure hope that you enjoy it as much as I did! I love seeing the secret lives of our wildlife!