Niko and Maya are with us this weekend and I went over to Barre to pickup a pizza for dinner. I received a text from Kristen when I was almost home and had the truck read it to me. I heard "They're at the feeder. Honk when you get home." Of course the actual message started "There's a bear at the feeder …".
The message seemed weird but I did beep the horn as I turned into the driveway. I immediately recognized the situation when I saw a smaller (maybe a year old) bear sitting under the mangled bird feeder stuffing itself. The bear had a tracking collar and an ear tag.
I set about doing everything that I could do from the inside of the truck. The bear didn't react at all. I finally got out of the truck and chased him off, yelling and clapping my hands. It moved about 10' off the lawn and then sat down and watched me while I took the feeders inside and collected the projectiles that Kristen had thrown during her attempts. The bear was back, looking for seed on the ground, before I even had the truck in the garage.
The kids had never seen a bear in the wild so they were very interested and going from window to window the whole time. Eventually, the bear wandered off.
Young Bear
According to the Facebook accounts, the small bear is usually followed by its larger mother. The two don't travel together but mama bear is apparently still keeping an eye on her newly independent offspring.
Sure enough, as we were sitting down to eat our pizza Niko yelled "The bear's back!".
This time it was Mama bear and she seemed to be following the exact path that the younger bear had taken. She must have lost the trail because she came back a couple of times and searched the entire yard. Cars were stopped along the road while people took in the spectacle. She eventually disappeared into the woods behind the house.
Mama Bear
-JC-
