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.

Bear Play

While I was in the high mountains, the mother bears and their cubs were enjoying an incredible berry season. The size and abundance of all sorts of berries exceed any recent season. I personally love the raspberries, which are usually tiny, but are almost as big as store-bought raspberries this year.

Perhaps partly due to the abundance of food, the mother bears and their cubs have been very relaxed lately, playing in front of my cameras.

My cameras have captured video footage of the play at two different springs. Some of the play was by Mabel and her cub, while Cinnamom also played with one of her cubs. The two sows seem to have gone back to their original territories with the springs shown in the video being close to the dividing line between them.

You can watch the footage here or at Youtube.

Our world near home is still beautiful and bathed in the warmth of summer, as you can see in last night's hazy sunset.

As a last note, I promise that I'll stop reminding you about the trail camera photo contest that I entered very soon (the last date to vote is 8/18/13). You can read about the contest and how to vote in the last paragraph of a previous post. Since only one vote per email address is allowed, there's no need to try to vote a second time! Thank you for your support!

I'll tell you more about our alpine trip in the coming days.