Lucky with his burlap bagOur biggest bear moment at WRI today was seeing Big Victor cruise through on the trail of a female. He never bothered to look toward the WRI Cabin or pay any attention to the feeding spots. He was focused.
We learned from a local bear feeder that Jewel is still with her 3 yearlings. We wonder if RC is, too, but nobody has seen them the last couple days.
Lucky playing with bagI believe many of the females that will be mating this year are out laying down scent trails, and the males are busy tracking them. Victor was the only bear we saw today so far (8:07 PM). We wonder if he was on the trail of Fern from last night.
Samantha’s yearling Mike, has been a regular visitor in the middle of the night. He is too young to be out mating.
Playful LuckyAt the Bear Center, a piece of burlap was a big hit for Lucky yesterday, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IGYzB8LyfM, and Holly went crazy with wild play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91iHdL58ozo like we’ve seen wild bears do. Gerry was the champion of that back around 1991. Some bears are more playful than others. Here is a video of Hope going crazy in a large hollow white pine tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbONk59p13Q.
Answers for Lily Fans:
- We’ll look again, but we didn’t see any injuries on Fern.
- The Dark Fishing Spider was a female about an inch long and a leg-span of between 2 and 2 ¼ inches.
bottom side
top sideA Nature Note: Fireflies are mating—at least the pair we saw on the window. Then we discovered that information on the 170 species of North American fireflies is hard to find. The standard insect guides show only a couple species with little information. In one book the only one shown happened to be the one we saw today. We learned it is in the genus Lucidota and is a day-flying species that produces little light.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.