Another sign of spring is the gull bringing his mate with him when he comes for bologna. 
Blue Jay feeding his mate 4-16-15One of the gulls is a catcher that is fun to throw bologna to like a Frisbee so he can catch it in mid-air.
I mentioned yesterday about blue jay males feeding their mates, but I didn’t have a picture because my best camera is at Nikon for repair and my second best one shows an error message and will have to be fixed, too. So I’m down to my little Canon G11 pocket camera which can’t reach out for pictures. So for a picture of a blue jay feeding his mate, I dug back for this picture from April 16, 2015. There were sunflower seed hearts all around the female, but she let the male gather some up to put into her ready bill.
The mink named Clear seemed to know I only had a little camera that required him to hold still, so he did that at the window sill for a nice picture of his face and clear chin patch in return for his reward. He no longer grabs the bologna quickly like he is catching prey. Like the gray fox, he takes it gently now.
Lily, Eli and Ellie 3-28-13In Pennsylvania, the cub is getting very frisky https://youtu.be/wnxwOvbYexY (4 1/2 minutes), which reminds me of Eli and Ellie’s Beary-Go-Round https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPDHTQfDLnU shortly before they left their den in 2013. Someone sent me this picture of Lily with those cubs about this time of year, showing good development like the cub in Pennsylvania. It would be nice to make comparisons between the Pennsylvania bear and the Minnesota bears. Age would help. The Pennsylvania mother seems less playful than young Lily was, especially with Hope when Lily was at 3-year-old. I wonder if the Pennsylvania mother is older. Also, I wonder how she came to den under that deck and be comfortable with the human noises. I suspect that she was familiar with that neighborhood and known by the landowners. Very often, when landowners become familiar with bears in their area they not only become willing to coexist with them, they become protective of them. Officials there apparently knew there were no safety issues involved and rightly went ahead and let the public learn from this bear with the support of the landowner. I wish more officials and landowners had that knowledge and judgment about safety with bears.
Mink named Clear
Another sign of spring is the upcoming Hinckley Gathering on April 13 at the Grand Casino in Hinckley noon to 5 PM with lunch being the Executive Deli Buffet. Tickets are $30, which covers the lunch and the fee for the event. Sarah Rose says when using paypal and the email address
Meanwhile, we’ll be waiting for the big event—the first bear to arrive, which was April 22 at 11:45 PM last year.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center