Beary Scary Wind - UPDATE September 24, 2023
Bertha
On this windy day, I saw one bear all day until the wind calmed a bit about 5:30 PM. The one bear of the day was yearling Bertha (Shadow, RC, Bow, Bertha) who I noticed this morning in the top of the white pine out my desk window. Bertha in white pine
Bertha in white pine
Windy days are scary. They sound like danger is rustling in all directions. When she finally came down for a bite to eat at 2:15 PM, she spent most of her time looking quickly and nervously in all directions with each gust of wind. A half hour later, she was back up in her safe spot resting again (photo). She isn’t that visible in the picture but it shows the kind of spot with many branches where bears like to rest in safety. The same spot was used by a lot of bears through the summer.
The spot has memories for me from 30 years ago when I noticed that the top of the trunk had died and just below it were five unusually robust branches taking over the upward growth. I cut the dead top off and screwed the board you can see in the picture onto the 10-inch diameter flat top to see if a small bear wanted to rest on it, and some did. But with some of the board now broken off no bear uses it anymore. They like the swirl of big branches just below it where Bertha is resting.Carex male yearling
Carex - male yearling
Shortly after 5:30 PM, another yearling showed up—Carex, son of Lily (Shadow, June, Lily, Carex) and the two got along and even had a little play. Carex doesn’t look that nice in his picture, but there was still enough wind to have him looking hither and thither with anxiety. He wasn’t worried about me. He was just anxious about what might be all around him.
On another note, the yard was alive with birds this morning with a surprise separation of ravens and crows. Ravens picked the side toward Woods Lake—31 of them—and on the other side of the WRI were 32 crows. I’m assuming that the ravens had first choice, weighing 2 ½ times what a crow does. On the crow side, they eventually had to share with 34 mallards that are nearly 2 ½ half times their size. Several sharp-shinned hawks kept the blue jays alert. A big female sharp-shin flew over and a dozen blue jays filled the dead balsam fir tree for safety. Sharp-shinned Hawk juv
Sharp-shinned Hawk juv.
Others flew to the tops of trees where they would be sitting higher than the sharp-shins like to dive toward their prey. When the blue jays played hard to get, one of the sharp-shins then chased a pileated woodpecker twice its size and another chased a crow three times its size that was twisting and turning to evade the little hawk. The picture of the sharp-shin is of one sitting on a lower branch of the refuge balsam looking up at what it just missed and now couldn’t get.
Enough of my rambling, Sharon’s Bear News is something to see with the most pictures ever!
https://bear.org/bear-news-september-23-2023/Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
