Pictures don't lie. Little Quill has become a porker. And we now have photographic evidence he is male. 
Crow with mouseThe picture of him standing up looking in the window with a pot belly left a smudge on the window, 41 inches from smudge to feet. I might have been off on the calories yesterday. I learned today that a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk (1,300 calories) was added to the recipe each time, so I think that comes out to a few more calories per cup.
Pudgy QuillLast night, he ate 1 1/2 pounds of nuts from the scale, making him weigh 59 pounds with the nuts. Then he went to the feeder, stood up for the picture, and lapped up just short of 4 cups of formula. He left just after midnight weighing 63 pounds, including 5 1/2 pounds of food for a probable lean weight of 57 1/2.
He might be slowing down. He did not come back to get the remaining 2 cups. He might be resting more now. Quill is becoming more comfortable here in this good food spot, so I suspect we'll see him next year. I believe he'll keep coming for awhile yet this fall, too.
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| Quill's house | |
The only animal we caught checking out the Quill House was this deer.
It was a day at the desk with birds to brighten the day. A couple times, I snapped pictures from my chair. It was a nice blue sky day, so I wanted something with blue. I didn't know the chickadee had spread its wings until I looked later. The lone remaining crow (above) showed us a little about its diet--a woodland deer mouse.
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| Chickadee | |
The team told me the 2017 Black Bear Field Courses are up on bearstudy.org ready for registration at http://www.bearstudy.org/website/bear-courses.html. Looking forward to meeting new people and reconnecting with returnees.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center