I’m relieved and hopeful with us this far into the hunting season believing that all the bears we know are safe. We heard only four shots total with the closest over a half mile away.
Red Maple turning
Confirmation that one of our favorites is safe for the season came with a welcome call that 16-year-old Ty (the first-born cub of then 3-year-old Bow in 2009, making him a grandson of RC, and a great-grandson of Shadow) showed up 13 miles away at the same place he stopped last year after heading out from here for the year. I suspect his mating range is in that area. The people who saw him and called love bears.
Bear numbers are dwindling here with hibernation beginning for some.
 Blue jay |
 Blue jay eats |
Leaves are turning color as we are officially into fall. Red maple leaves are turning yellow, pink, and red—different colors on different trees for reasons I don’t know. We love the colors, but we still appreciate the big splash of color from the dozen blue jays that eat the bears’ leftovers and the splash of iridescence from grackles that help with that. One of the blue jays was nice to pose for the camera as he finished digging two peanuts out of the shell he is still holding for the picture.
Grackle male
The usual pair of eagles somehow discovered that we put out food for them, too, and one of them settled down in a big pine looking at his or her food waiting below as I was writing this update. The picture (at top) shows how flat their wings are as they glide, making it easy to know it’s an eagle, not one of the turkey vultures that also discover the food pile we put on the ground for them. Vultures glide with their wings angled up in a V.
Although bear hunting season continues for another 2 ½ weeks, most kills in this part of the state are in the first half of September.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center