Wildlife & Related

[arbol]

Gorgeous pictures, all.

Hummer, that Bear picture is something else!

-John

[Hummer]

Gorgeous pictures, all.

Hummer, that Bear picture is something else!

-John

He does look pretty menacing. Three videos from two trail cams in the yard show that he's a pretty big fella.

This evening just before 6 p.m., my cousin spotted a bear cross our driveway and head through the forest toward our place. At 8:20, Mrs. Hummer and I spotted the bear in our little meadow about 40 ft. from us. It is a smaller, younger bear than the one on the cams from May 15. I expect it will be back overnight and I'll check the cams in the morning. Not good when bears come around during daylight hours. I'll need to keep the electric perimeter fence energized during the day now. In summer I keep a 12 gauge handy, loaded with 3 rounds of rubber buckshot and rubber ball, then 3 magnum slugs. I hope to haze this little one before it becomes a problem bear.

[arbol]

I did a hike in SW Colorado, and we were hiking up a gravel road to an abandoned town where we were going to spend the night before tackling a couple of 13ers the next day. As we are midway through hiking up the gravel road, a 4x4 or two past us, and the first one said, "Did you see that bear?! Biggest bear I have ever seen!"

I/we had not seen a bear.

Please keep us updated. Seems like a pretty serious issue where you are.

-John

[Bailey Guns]

Have a buddy who lives in Grant right at the base of Kenosha Pass.

He was up in the middle of the night and had the front door open (he has a screened storm door) to let in some cooler air. A young bear busted thru the screen right into his house, wandered down the hall with my buddy screaming at him. The bear then nonchalantly walked thru the living room and out the closed screen on the patio sliding door. The bear showed no signs of aggression, but no signs of fear, either.

He called DOW this morning. They had reports from two of his neighbors that the bear tried to get into their homes, too. Naturally, DOW is gonna trap and kill the bear. It just doesn't pay to be a bear any more, because there are so many stupid people (not my buddy...he knows how to live in bear country) who violate every rule for living in bear country, that will get you killed just because you're hungry. Frankly, I'd rather have less people and more bears.

[Ah Pook]

Attachment 90623

Did you try to pet her?

[Bailey Guns]

Attachment 90623

I've never seen a horse with legs like that...

[Hummer]

Yesterday I watched a cow with a very young calf try to cross the river but it was too deep for the young one....They both headed back to chomp willow along the stream.

[William]

Sunday @RMNP

[Hummer]

Yesterday, I saw that one of the kestrel chicks had fledged from the nest box on the Palisade farm house. American Kestrels are the smallest North
American falcon. I moved an orchard ladder to the box and poked my phone camera in the entrance to snap a photo. There were three more young close to fledging. One fledged the nest later in the afternoon, and the last two this morning. Today, all four young are arrayed on trees around the yard, screaming their new found falconness in hope of being fed another mouse, grasshopper or lizard. Pickings are slim given the dry conditions. The adult kestrels follow me around as I irrigate the wildlife shelter belt, protesting my presence and uncaring that I provided some 35 generations of kestrels with clean, free housing.

A little distressing are the eight baby magpies and four adults wandering the yard looking for any meaty morsel. The Gambel's Quail chicks haven't a chance.

At our home in NW Boulder County, we again have American Dippers nesting in a box in the stream by the cabin. I've placed about 35 of these boxes on rivers around the state since 1984. Several boxes within a few miles are currently in use now. I expect that four dipper chicks will fledge our in stream nest box sometime between July 3-8. If the river is amenable I hope to band the dippers before they fledge.

[BladesNBarrels]

Fascinating!
Thanks for posting.