To escape the desk, I checked Quill's bowl of formula several times today. At 2:20 PM, I found he had come in unseen and licked the bowl clean--a quart of Hope Formula. 
Gray jayI suspect that filled him up because there was no sign of his eating the date mash. As I expected, he didn't touch the old hot dogs I set out for the 2 pine martens and 3 gray foxes next to his formula bowl.
Red squirrelOut the window, ducks walked up from the lake for sunflower seeds. Before I could correct the exposure on the picture I snapped, the ducks noticed me in the wind and flew, giving me a lucky exposure on the quick snap of two of them heading back to the lake.
A red squirrel prowled the branches of the balsam fir tree for buds. The bottom center of the picture shows the light tip of a branch that's had its bud nipped off.
MallardsAlso out the window, gray jays are coming for their fair share to store for the winter. Instead of burying food in the ground like blue jays do, gray jays have special saliva for sticking their food to branches above snow level. I put old hot dogs next to sunflower seeds. The gray jays take only the hot dogs, and the blue jays take only the seeds.
A Lily Fan sent me this link to a beautifully photographed and written article for the New York Times about our national treasure, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The article features our friends Paul and Sue Schurke and has a picture of Lucky at the Bear Center. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/travel/boundary-waters-minnesota-canada-into-the-wild.html.
Mallards flyingSome of the people who come to Black Bear Field Courses take trips into the BWCAW afterward. We're thinking of 9 Bear Courses in July and August 2017, each one starting on a Sunday at 10 AM and ending midday on a Wednesday. That would mean the courses start on July 2 and end on August 30, 2017.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center