Tasha, from Kentucky, remains active while her play partner Holly, who has northern genes, has stayed in her bunker den almost a week now. Tasha has wanted to visit Holly, and maybe join her, but Lucky, in the next pen scares her away. Tasha might not settle down for another month or more.
Hummingbird on 9/13/17 Meanwhile, we’ll be watching what she does.
Out the window here at the WRI, the last hummingbird visit was September 16 and the last gull visit was about that same time. We had been down to one gull for the week or so before that. The last gull was “8 and 4,” named for the position of two black dots on his left iris. He is the gull that taps on the window to let me know he is not full of bologna yet. We ended up with a lot of bologna to be frozen until next April when we will see how many familiar gulls return from migration. According to an old tagging study by the Duluth Bird Club, Minnesota’s herring gulls migrate to the Great Lakes and to the Gulf of Mexico.
The few bears that come to the WRI are now strictly nocturnal. One of those is V-Dot who has been acting lethargic longer than any of the others. Last year, he left 12:30 AM on September 26. We’ll see if he shows up tonight. Another one still coming is Harry who came in skinny on September 3rd and is trying to put some meat on his bones even though he is past his departure date of last year.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center