To recap the day, the camera acted up all morning then finally quit altogether, making it necessary for Jason to snowmobile out to the den shed. Because the camera was down, we weren’t able to observe the bears' reaction to his arrival. However, when the camera came back up, the bears were bedded and showed no sign of disturbance when the loud snowmobile headed off.
Toward evening, with no wind, Lily and Hope made many trips in the northeasterly direction they have gone a few times in recent days. Is there a patch of willows with catkins in that direction? Or are they checking out a new bed site? They returned frequently to check on the cubs. At 7:45 PM, one of the cubs (we assume spunky Faith) went off after them while the other (Jason?) stayed near the bed site and screamed. Eventually all three came back.
The camera continued to look brighter than the near darkness out the window. But by 8:25 PM the camera was black, too. In the darkness at 8:31 PM was a screaming cub and Lily grunting as she returned. It was time to begin writing.
With all the activity, is this the night they will move to a more secure bed? Would they have moved already if Jason had followed? Tonight is 4 days later than Lily and Hope moved to a big white pine last year. It’s 11 days earlier than June led Lily and her brothers away from their den to twin white pines on April 16, 2007 in a year of little snow.
This was another day of mainly working on data and exhibits while continuing to eat leftovers from the BD party. You are so good to us!
A Lily fan sent this link to the German version of Bearwalker called “Lynn - Der Freund der Bären“ http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=6872154
Another Lily fan sent a link to a story about how an Andover, MN, classroom uses the Den Cam in their learning http://www.anoka.k12.mn.us/education/components/whatsnew/default.php?sectiondetailid=233410&itemID=35268. The picture with it is precious.
In the Readers Digest contest to win money for Ely, you put Ely over the 250,000 vote mark while registering 18,000 votes to keep us in 6th place close behind 5th. This puts Ely a whopping 120,000 votes ahead of 7th. The link to vote 10 times in a row each day is http://wehearyouamerica.readersdigest.com/town.jsp?town=ELY&state=MN .
We hope to have another video posted later tonight! Please check for recent ‘bearstudy’ video uploads on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/bearstudy#g/u.
All is quiet in the darkness at the Den Cam.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center