Here is a cropped image, but it's grainier. It's best to embiggen the first picture for a full bear experience.
This is a juvenile black bear, and I saw it earlier in the morning too. It is actually one of two siblings in the neighborhood. A neighbor has video footage of the two siblings hanging out in her backyard before this one decided to eat some grass in our field and nap behind the garage.
Just after this picture a young woman was running on the street below, down by that white fence in the background. This caught the bears attention, and it watched her carefully partly to determine if she was a threat and partly to perhaps consider giving chase for funsies, because juveniles of any species learn by testing their environment which can be dangerous for both.
Two days later a 16-year-old boy hiking on a VERY popular trail called Mt. Si an hour away, had a run in with a momma bear while with his friends. Fortunately, he's okay, but he made the mistake of panicking and running. Never run! Prey runs; predators chase. I have instilled this in my son since he was young. Back away and never turn your back. Make yourself big and be noisy. Maybe this is why Americans are so noisy?
I'm glad he is all right!
About two days after that then there was this story of a 19-year-old Autistic boy being clawed in the face by a black bear through his bedroom window. I know that this area in California is also an area with a high black bear population, so is Taos, NM and Denver, Colorado suburbs. This is an active time of year as they look for food. Still, there seems to be quite an increase in the number of bears and I predict more encounters happening. Bears used to be commonly hunted, but as developments spread into more wilderness and bears are forced to live in areas with people more conflicts will continue to occur.
I'll probably post some variation of this on my other blog, but hey, you guys are getting first scoop!
💗💗💗💗💗💗
In other news....
Happy Gay Pride Month! 🌈🌈🌈
I pay my respects to your Majesty by Eninaj27 on Deviant Art
Japan - Was awesome! We're still thinking about it. It is mentioned on my other blog with some nice pictures.
Things are going okay here. The shite doth hit the fan around here often. Always drama with the parents. My health is up and down, but I dare not speak of it. If health insurers discover that you have some ailment that might cost them a lot of money in the long run, they'll find a way to justify: DENY, DELAY, DIE (at their convenience.)
America is the richest country in the world because of our GDP, it is not a richness of life. I'm sorry that Canada and the UK are also so keenly affected by this pernicious disease of capitalism. What my son saw in Japan is that every country has its struggles and challenges, but also that the American Dream of exceptionalism is a lie.
In Alaska around the fish cannery sites, you can see the truth that the noble eagle is no better than seagulls circling the county dump. Filthy beggars. People are suffering and dying and Elon Musk is a fucking trillionaire and we are supposed to feel what? Proud? Jealous? I hope he chokes on a chicken bone!
This is a poster from our favorite cafe in Hiroshima:
I love you my bloggerati peeps, crack on!
Eek! We think foxes are bad?
ReplyDeleteI had quite forgotten you were off to Japan. I look forward to reading more about it.
If you have another blog, I have never seen it... There is no link to it in your sidebar? Jx
One of my favorite videos is a fox stealing a garden glove. I know they can be a nuisance, but at least they don't have the power to slap you back into last week. I should do a nice short light post about Japan here.
DeleteI'm hoping to pull myself together enough to make the other blog related to a book I've been working on and potentially a real organization. It's my public facing self, this blog is hanging out with friends. My MIL reads the other blog! Potential employees can also find the other blog linked to me. It's Nature-led.org No less authentic, just more careful about what I say. :)
A decade ago, back in Dolores Delargo Towers #4, I woke to see a mound of earth in the middle of our new flower-bed. It was a ladies' high-heeled shoe! For some reason only known to it, a fox had evidently taken a fancy to it somewhere in the neighbourhood and decided to bury it in our garden! We could only assume that it was a drag queen fox, and had put it somewhere safe until it found the other one...😂
DeleteThey're aggravating, but certainly not dangerous like bears! Jx
PS I'll seek out Nature-led, and try and avoid upsetting the mother-in-law with any rudeness!
The the story of the Drag Queen Fox! I can't imagine you being anything other than polite (as long as I've known you online at any rate.) I don't doubt that you can be appropriately vicious in real life when the need arises though. :)
Delete"Appropriately vicious" is my middle name, my dear! Jx
DeleteAnd I thought startling a badger in the garden would be terrifying! I embiggened the first pic - are those enormous teeth, or is it a trick of the light?
ReplyDeleteI hope your health is more up than down, and I'm looking forward to reading/seeing more about your Japan trip.
British Badgers are adorable! North American Badgers will threaten to take your face off! That's if you could even find one, which you shouldn't, because their very elusive. This is why so many were stunned when there was game cam footage of a badger and coyote as friends, but the unlikely friendship does make sense from a survival standpoint. The badger flushes out the target; the coyote gets it when it pops out of the hole.
DeleteAh here it is: a 12 second video https://youtu.be/2bICTWNRrGE?si=yT04Es-YwLM_VOU6
Oh yes, and thank you for words of good health! One must carry on.
DeleteEr...a bear outside my window - I can't imagine - that's just stunning. I think I would stay indoors a lot!
ReplyDeleteWe have foxes and badgers aplenty in these parts, but they keep themselves to themselves mostly as there is plenty of food in the wild. We put black rubbish sacks out and they generally remain intact, but unfortunately this means I have to be up early or late to see them.
Fab photos, Melanie!
Sx
Sadly, they would love to stay out of sight and not be around humans, but humans keep building more and more. Woodinville has always been known as a small suburb with large properties, because this is where people with horses lived, but now the horse owners are priced out the lots are getting split and developers are building McMansions. There was enough space for us and bears to coexist with rare sightings, but now each generation of animals here are getting born into less and less habitat. I fear we've reaching that tipping point of amiable coexistence and the wild neighbors are bound to lose. :( We've had the occasional fox, but they have to keep moving on because this area has too many coyotes that will kill the foxes.
DeleteBEARS!!!!!!! Well it is Pride Month!!!!! I have only seen two bears up close and both time was at the Woods Campground when they were on our glamp site and passed my little trailer I stay in. Over the years there were sightings, but with noise and music, they tend to say away for the most part. It's deer and fox here at the Casa du Borghese.
ReplyDeleteA campground is a more likely place to see bears and it is nice that the noise can keep them away. That used to work here, but now there aren't enough woods to escape too.
DeleteWe have enough trouble with the wild boar, no need for bears. They hang around the Bavarian Forrest National Park (that is only the Western part, because since it is EU the Czech part of the mountains & the rest are united, pretty large habitat for lynx, bears, Wisent) and the Alps.
ReplyDelete