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!

Dancing Bears in Autumn

I know that winter is almost here when I start finding Shyla soaking up the warmth of sun puddles.

This is the time when the vegetation around us turns brown, readying itself for freezing air and snow.


It's also the time of year when bears have one last flurry of activity. On 10/2, a bear approached a sad bear-marking tree. It's "sad" because mountain bikers decided to widen a trail, and they cut off all its branches. It's just ahead of the bear in this photo.

These marking trees are so important to bears that they keep marking them, even after humans have denuded them.

This is a beautiful sow!

A few miles away, trail cams captured other bears marking trees like crazy. A small sow first marked a tree. Then, Milton Sr. did his own dance. Milton Sr. is the long-term big male of our area. He was badly injured a few years ago, and another big male ("Tiny") tried to take over the territory. Since then, they've both patrolled the area, often getting into "marking wars" where one marks over the other one's scent as often as they can. That happened in this video.

If you need a good laugh at the bear antics or just want to see some wild bears in action, enjoy the video!

Happy very late autumn from the Rockies!

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!

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.

Sunshine, moose, and mountain lions!

Sunshine, finally!

It makes everything look more beautiful.

Shyla and I enjoyed playing in the forest in the light of the rising sun.

On our way to see the sunrise this morning, we managed to ride right past at least two moose without me seeing them. The Runner wasn't far behind, and he spotted them. Shyla and I were lucky that they let us pass. I'm sure that Shyla was aware of them but she has proven that she is *never* going to chase a moose. She wants to stay as far away from them as she can after our scary experiences.

The Mama Moose, this year's calf, and last year's calf ("Lefty") have been living in a small radius around our house. I see the cavities in the snow where they sleep each night. Can you imagine being able to sleep in the snow in sub-freezing temperatures night after night? Amazing.

The sheer number of moose that I've seen so far this autumn and winter (at least different six individuals) close to our house is incredible. I find myself wondering if our state will end up regretting their decision to introduce moose here almost 40 years ago. The population has gone wild, primarily because they have no natural predators. A mountain lion can't take down a healthy adult moose.

A comparison of how small a mountain lion is compared to a moose explains why. Here's a photo of a mountain lion passing my trail camera.

Now, here's a moose passing the same camera, mounted in exactly the same place. The moose absolutely dwarfs the mountain lion. I cannot imagine a mountain lion killing a healthy moose.

Our wildlife authorities have repeatedly refused to help wolves establish themselves in our state. Wolves, working as a pack, do prey on moose. The moose population explosion in our neck of the woods has me pondering what will happen to our ecosystem in the future. Will the moose eat every last aspen and willow? I'm sure that there will be cries for more human hunting of moose but, personally, I'd prefer having wolves here.

Back to less serious stuff - Shyla and I truly enjoyed sunshine today - after a couple of gray days. It was super cold but the sun rays were warm. The moose didn't reappear so we had a very relaxed outing.

It was my favorite kind of winter day - below freezing, sunny, and a bluebird sky! The sun made the snow crystals glitter.

I hope that all the people in the path of the east coast snowstorm can find a moment to see the beauty in the snow and to enjoy the way that life slows down when Mother Nature takes over. It's a more regular occurrence here - one that we've learned to enjoy, tucked warmly next to our crackling fire.

Happy Thursday!

Shyla - The Moose Alerter

You are used to seeing photos of Shyla galloping through the forest, looking like a perpetual motion machine.

On the day that we left for the desert, she and I were on the trails. She was a little ahead of me. I looked up, and she had planted herself in the middle of the trail in a "sit". Her ears were perked up, and she looked intently at something ahead of her. This behavior was completely novel for her.

So, I followed her gaze, and I saw a trio of moose at least 40 yards ahead of us. I quickly turned around, and Shyla and I backtracked.

I think that she'd been badly scared by two recent incidents, one of which I wrote about here. I didn't write about what happened on the very next day. I'd decided that Shyla needed to stay very close to me until the moose situation had calmed down so I had her in a "heel", which means that she was directly behind my bike on a singletrack path.

As we descended the very same route as we'd just climbed, our local mother moose barreled out of an aspen forest directly at Shyla. Shyla easily evaded her but looked terrified. I was very lucky that the mother moose didn't take out her anger on me because I couldn't have evaded her so easily. That happened the day after Shyla and I were seriously charged by the same mother moose.

I'm guessing that those two events combined to make Shyla extremely wary of moose. I would love if her "default behavior" when she senses moose in the future is to sit stationary. Only time will tell if she repeats that stellar warning system for me.

I was reminded of that event because I checked a trail camera the other day that showed the trio of moose actually fleeing! Mother moose was first.

This year's calf was not far behind.

And last year's calf, a single-antlered bull, was last in the trio.

Here's a better look at last year's calf.

I was left wondering what on Earth would cause moose to flee! They certainly don't flee when faced with me and the Duo. I wonder if they flee if they sense people before the people see them. Given the time of day in the photos above, it might have been a hiker who startled them. I am sorry to report that my trail camera gave me no insight into the cause of their flight - no one else passed it all day long.

Here's to Shyla learning to "tell" me when moose are around!

I had my test today, and I don't know the results yet. The results should help guide the next decisions. Thanks for all the great thoughts and comments. My sincerest hope is that this will somehow resolve by itself. However, after 2 months, that's starting to seem like a pipe dream. And, I must admit that it's a level of pain that I can't tolerate while remaining happy.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy our winter wonderland. I'm hoping my winter adaptation kicks in soon. I've been so cold since we arrived home that I've barely been able to enjoy the sights but they've been beautiful.

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!!!

A Winter Bobcat Pair

I just returned from a sunset hike with the Duo, made possible by our longer days!

The light is changing so fast, and I am cheering it on!

But I guess the later sunset is keeping R up past his bedtime!

We hurried home after sunset so I could finish this post. The first part was about an innocent trail camera attached to a huge old aspen tree. It has been pointed at a bear marking tree for a couple of years. The bear marking tree is the small pine tree in the center of the photo, just above the bobcat's head. Many other species, like this bobcat, also pass this spot and often sniff the tree.

In the next photo, you see the entire world starting to tip as the old tree toppled in high winds.

Then, I got approximately 3700 photos of the forest canopy, some at night and some during the day. Lucky for me, the tree didn't fall onto the camera, and the snow cushioned the camera's impact. So, it still works!

Around the same time as that tree toppled, a nearby trail camera was capturing bobcat activity. Very early in the morning of 1/16, a bobcat sniffed the area in front of the camera and then paused to look at it before departing.

A few hours later, another bobcat (maybe the same one) showed up to sniff that spot.

This one was also mesmerized by the many markings this spot has received from mountain lions and bobcats.

But, this bobcat was also concerned about something behind him/her. The bobcat kept turning and staring up the gully.

This next photo looks very "kittenish" to me, so I started to wonder if this bobcat was waiting for his/her mom.

The bobcat shook, making a funny photo!

And then another bobcat arrived. There are definitely two bobcats in the next photo but I don't which one is which.

 The pair reconvened at that interesting spot.

They rolled around together.

It looked as if they were leaving their scent marks by rubbing their faces on a rock that was jutting out of the snow. At the same time, they appeared to play with each other.

At times, they looked like one big ball of fur. I could barely distinguish two separate bobcats.

Then, one of them briefly focused on the trail camera, before the two strutted off into the forest together.

I am assuming that this is a mother-kitten pair. But, it is conceivable that it's a mating pair. Bobcats are said to mate in "late winter", giving birth to kittens 50-70 days later in early spring. For us, 50-70 days from now would be very early spring, with our biggest snow storms likely to occur after the birth of kittens. For that reason, I tend to think this is a mother-kitten pair. Kittens stay with their mothers for the first 8-11 months of their lives.

In any case, the Duo and I wish this pair of bobcats good luck for the rest of the winter!