Holly comes out briefly The word from Holly Cam watchers is that she stayed in the den nearly all night. They saw some eye shine between 3:30 and 4 AM. She came out briefly to check her old box and went right back. It was a cold night—minus 31F on Lynn’s drive to work this morning. Judy Thon checked Holly, who was fine.
Red squirrel - Dec 25With the word that Holly was making the den her winter home, Judy and Ted switched the camera to the den. Holly came out. They saw where she had lain for the night—just inside the entrance facing out. The eye shine was when her head was up. Otherwise, she had her head tucked for warmth. She faces out the entrance just like wild bears generally do.
About 25 volunteers will watch what Holly does over the next couple days and let Judy Thon know.
Holly appears to have a good coat of underfur but is missing the outer guard hairs on parts of her sides and rear. A staff member will provide a blanket and someone will even out the straw in the den so she has a thicker cushion under her where she likes to lie looking out the door. We know the blanket isn’t natural, but if it might do a little good in her case, we want to do it.
GoldfinchesWe're glad to see little Holly is withstanding the cold. Her Minnesota genes apparently count for something. On this cold day, we marveled that red squirrels were out feeding and goldfinch flocks were making the rounds to bird feeders. We suspect the squirrels were spending a lot of time under the snow when they weren’t feeding, though.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center.
All pictures taken today unless otherwise noted.