Good Night Bears

Hibernation time, good night bears see you in the Spring.

Fall is quickly making an exit, a few first spits of snow in the air and frosty mornings. The bears will soon be making their way back up the mountains and to their dens for a long winter nap. Call it a hobby, past time hahaha or obsession…..but love to watch our bears.

“Animals are a window to your soul and a doorway to your spiritual destiny. If you let them into your life and allow them to teach you, you will be better for it.”

― Kim Shotola, The past few years not only waiting, watching, searching and learning about the local bears. Its been exciting to capture many with a photo, but to also document sightings and identifying the different bears. One of my first good sightings was right across the street. Every time I passed a window I stopped to view the hillside searching for a bear to cross. The first male I caught on camera stood up on his hind legs. He was tall and lanky, like Yogi, except black. He had a white patch on his chest.

Its always exciting to capture a moment of a mama with new cubs. A couple times excitement might not be the best word when out walking and the young ones cross the road in front of you and the caution that holds you back knowing how a mama bear could react. It has been especially fun to see the past 4 years a new set of twins with a black and cinnamon brown cub together. The first set of cubs we identified as Charlie Brown and Lucy, then got to see them when they returned a second season with mom as “teens”. Curious if Lucy the black smaller female is the new mom of twins I caught a quick look at this year, being the young black female had twins, one black and one cinnamon. Over the past years I have seen and identified over 7 bears in our area in a season. This year the clear cuts are very over grown and to quickly capture a bear running from behind the tall brush was only a chance and few of them. Some of my friends call me the bear lady….yes, I get excited over the signs of a bear ( poop, prints in the dirt, capture on a trail cam or even an apple puke pile). During the height of our “bear season sightings”, I make several road trips and sit and wait and watch with hope. Shasta was good with this and could smell or see a bear way up on the hillside and share my excitement. She was my bear watching partner. Bosco was my protector and had a little game on treeing a few bears, which horrified me when he decided to chase a 400 pound mama one day ( that walk was cut short). Lucy my pup, is learning and has actually warned me when she catches scent of a bear on our walks.

The bears make their way to a nice sleep, I hope they sleep well all Winter and bare a few new cubs to show us this Spring. Occasionally a sighting of a male out mid winter crossing a road and wonder if it’s a young one who did not find a good den of its own after being kicked out of moms den so she could bear new off spring in her sleep? As I study and learn about bears, habitat and patterns, a female when she has cubs will kick out the male cub to go far away on its own. But if she has a female cub when its time for it to be on its own she may give the young teen a plot of her territory to reside in. It like a parent with 20 acres and they sub divide off 2 acres for the child to cultivate on their own.

As November is quickly ticking past us, the bears are headed to sleep and don’t expect to see them again until May. I love living on Bear Creek and kinda ironic to live on a road named after my passion, some things are meant to be. The Eagles have returned to watch so I don’t completely hibernate the Winter away myself. It was good to see a bald eagle soaring above our house yesterday, knowing they have returned to their feeding and mating grounds for Winter. For now, Good night bear.

“Bears not only make the habitat rich, but they also enrich us just by being.” — Linda Jo Hunter