Juliet Prepares, June's Cub Climbs - UPDATE January 12, 2015
Black-capped Chickadee
Black-capped Chickadee drops one seed
The 8-minute Den Cam archive for this day showed what Juliet did during an active period (YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3EQDZeUooU, and (Vimeo)
https://vimeo.com/116516430.
It?s nice to see Juliet?s wide, mature 11-year-old head and remember how this semi-nervous bear has learned to trust the voices of a few people in the woods and come to them?usually after 20-30 minutes of verifying by smell and sight that she heard right.
Juliet has raked in a lot of bedding to make a deep nest for the cubs that she will soon give birth to. She pulls a stick into her bed and chews it, perhaps to make more bedding out of it or just to while the hours away.
Juliet getting ready to chew up the stick
Juliet ready to shred this stick - 01-12-2014
Her temperature is probably in the mid to high 90?s Fahrenheit, so her brain is plenty active.
A light spot on the front of her right ear near the base might be frostbite. .Juliet?s left ear is slightly shorter than the other due to frostbite she incurred some years ago.
At the end of the video, she puts her head down and drops into a restful state.
In the 100-second flashback to April 16, 2007,
http://youtu.be/Qj4GNw1wP4w, one of Lily?s brothers tries to climb down a branchy spruce tree. One of June?s cubs works hard to climb down a branchy spruce tree. With the branches so close together, the cub even ends up coming down headfirst for a foot or so. This is probably only the second day the cubs were climbing trees, so he?s doing pretty good. With all the difficulty he has, it?s no wonder the cubs were hesitant to come down when June wanted them to.
Some black-capped chickadees attempt to carry off more than one seed at a time. Their little bills have trouble doing that and they often end up dropping one like we see in the photo above.
A major topic at the Bear Center today was the need for Bear Educator volunteers to lead groups on behind the scenes tours to see the bears, to work with children in areas of the new Northwoods Ecology Hall where they can hold snakes, turtles, a toad, etc.
We are also planning a close-up bird feeding area off the viewing deck. The area will not only give close-up views of birds but will be an exhibit showing how people can feed birds without bears destroying the bird feeders. A solar?powered electric fence around the base is the secret. It will be in the bear enclosure where it will be thoroughly tested by Ted, Honey, Lucky, and Holly. It will be modeled after a feeder system developed by resident Charley Meyer who has had no trouble in the years he has used it with bears all around.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
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