Daily Updates
Jewel, Wildlife - UPDATE May 4, 2016
04 May 2016
Print Email
Jewel likely has three cubs. We only heard two voices at the den. A man who has been coming to the community since 1956 and is now a resident was delighted Purple finch mid-flight
Purple finch mid-flight

to video and watch a mother with 3 cubs near his house. He will try to get us the video and pictures. It?s from April 24. He lives about a half mile from her den. I hope we can see the family and photograph the cubs for the catalog of bears in the clan. We want to learn their sexes and add them to Shadow?s family tree.
Out the window, redpolls are gone, replaced by purple finches.
Purple finch
Purple finch

When I arrived this morning, instead of a pair of mallards, it was a lone male outside the window, making me think she was still keeping the eggs warm in their nest. By evening, with the temperature over 60?F, she was back (photo below), and they were together again.
Lily?s 3-year-old son Eli was seen a couple times today. One of those times was here just after dawn when he checked an empty feeder and went on. Toward evening, I followed up on a call from a resident and wanted to get a picture of him in daylight, but he bolted. The resident is one who calls us to bring the Herring gull
Herring gull

Black Bear Field Courses over whenever there is action. A lot of wildlife uses his property, including deer (photo below).
A fox cruised through outside the window, bringing my attention to the new leaves lit by the setting sun on the forest floor. They are mostly Wild Lily of the Valley (Maianthemum canadense), which is not a bear food. Barely starting to emerge are Big Leaf Aster leaves (Aster macrophyllus), which are a bear food. They will soon carpet the forest floor. Bear food will be everywhere for a week or two until the leaves start to mature and become unpalatable.
The day ended with the tame gull tapping at the window by my desk, telling me to get up and bring her(?) some bologna, which I did. She prefers bologna over hot dogs. I say ?her? because she is smaller than the non-tame gull. If American herring gulls are like the European herring gull, females are smaller than males. The larger non-tame herring gull chases her if he is around when I feed her.
Mallard female

Deer

Fox

The big object on my desk is a speaker connected to an outside microphone that is far more sensitive than the human ear. When it seems quiet outside, the microphone picks up wolf howls, eagles, ravens, owls, frogs, and the twitter of birds. Just now, I heard the loud splash of a beaver amidst the din of spring peepers.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center