A rare Ursus plywoodii sighting! With the temperature reaching 85°F, Aster swam to an island. All the bears with GPS units are fine—Lily, Juliet, Aster, and Jewel.
At the Bear Center, Lucky is sticking tight to Honey’s pen, which might indicate that Honey is coming into estrus. Ted is his usual friendly self. Holly is meeting new people—including the new intern Elizabeth—and is becoming more accepting of them. We’re anxious to let her out into the big enclosure to explore and interact with the other bears. Her pacing shows she would like that, but it’s mandatory that we keep her separate from the other bears until we can cure what is making her itch—which may be contagious. We’re working closely with the veterinarians to help Holly and protect the other bears.
At the Wildlife Research Institute, the Hooded Merganser pair was spending some together time on Woods Lake, giving us a chance to get a ladder and peek into the nest box she flew into a couple days ago. It has just one egg. We’ll check again when they give us another opportunity.
At 10:10 AM, the female Pileated Woodpecker flew out of the nest cavity, and the male took over incubation duties. At 1:37 PM, the male called. We immediately went to the window to see what was happening. By then, the male was out of the nest, and the female was entering. With them obviously incubating, we don’t know what to make of the mating we saw a couple days ago.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center