Lily's cubs behind icicle curtain
Lily eating icicles Lynn didn’t want to believe that nice Lily would share Sue Mansfield’s most irritating habit—crunching ice! But about 2:30 PM, Lily sweetly and gently reached for an icicle and crunched it up! Loud! So nobody could think or write coherent sentences. And then she crunched the icicles that had fallen. We don’t think she was intentionally doing it to irritate Lynn. We think she just enjoyed the ice on this balmy 32F day. Lily Fans, classrooms, and researchers can now see better and learn more. Maybe she heard our complaints about not being able to see the cubs well enough through the icicles. A video of Lily eating icicles can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DPdIpnXVKA. Of interest at the end of the video is that both cubs seem to be nursing on the nipples on Lily's left side—just like Faith and Jason did. More on nipple order in future updates.
'Crawfish Boil' - Feb 23, 2013
Crawfish - Feb 23, 2013Speaking of eating, Lynn and Donna documented a couple secrets of Cajun cooking that not everyone might know. A nice truck driver and his family invited Lynn and Donna to share their crawfish in a restaurant named “Crazy Bout Crawfish.” The trucker revealed the ingredients of the “Secret Sauce” they were dipping the tails into—mayo and ketchup. Also, the kind folks that invited 
Spanish moss and water hyacinth - Feb 23, 2013
Little blue heron with tadpole - Feb 21, 2013Lynn and Donna to share in their backwoods crawfish boil revealed the “Holy Trinity” (as they said) for the gravy that smothers Crawfish Etoufee and are the basic ingredients for some other Cajun dishes—onions, bell peppers, and celery.
More on food, Lynn and Donna were able to see in pictures what happened too quickly for their eyes to catch—what this Little Blue Heron was eating. The top swamp delicacies were big insect larvae and big tadpoles like this one.
Honey and Lucky's densAt the Bear Center, the snow around Ted, Lucky, and Honey’s dens has remained untracked for weeks or months. Even when 5 people installed his Den Cam, Ted did not consider the moment worthy of arousing for a friendly meet and greet. 
Ted raking strawBut today, the staff found something Ted apparently likes better than people—straw. They spread a layer of straw on the snow to soften the brightness that causes the glare on Ted’s Den Cam. Ted apparently didn’t know why the straw was being spread because he hustled out to start raking it in. See straw, must rake. The creative staff will have to come up with something different to fight the glare.
Another high point today was a nice, long talk with Charlie Russell, one of the most knowledgeable bear experts anywhere. Charlie is one of the bear experts who will be visiting here this year.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
Pictures taken today unless otherwise noted.