We had some unexpected visitors this weekend!
They arrived in the wee hours Saturday morning-
And stayed hunkered down in this tree (the one in the middle) all Saturday
Here is a good picture of Mama bear that The Man snapped Saturday morning
I first noticed them when I was taking Tiny Gus out to potty Saturday morning. It was still dark, but I heard a loud rustling noise, so I put him back in the house and went back out to investigate with a flashlight. The noise led me to the tree, and my flashlight beam caught the eyes of MamaBear about halfway up the tree (total height I’m guessing is about 60-70 feet?)
So at first we thought it was just one bear.
We really hoped that it would find an opportunity to come down and leave before it got light out that morning, but the sun came up and we could see that there was more than one. We called Fish and Wildlife, and they said the visitors weren’t likely to cause any trouble if we just left them alone.
Later that morning we checked the saved webcam video which showed us 3 bears arriving at about 2 am. The whole family.
At that point we knew that they’d probably be up in the tree until the sun went back down and there wasn’t as much human activity. So The Man set up another camera pointed at the tree so we could see when/how they decided to depart.
As it got dark we tuned in to the new cam, a little anxious about what they might do and where they might go once they came down from the tree.
Around 8 pm they finally came down, and when they did we realized there were a total of 4 bears! Mama and three cubs.
First they scouted out the fenceline south of the tree, between our yard and the neighbor’s pasture. But they must have decided that the cubs couldn’t make it over that fence/gate (it has some barbed wire at the top)
Then they went back towards our garden/pasture (the direction we saw them arriving from
But something over there must have spooked them, because within a couple of minutes they raced back to the tree
After that, they regrouped and decided to to try the fenceline to the north of the tree. I believe that from there they popped over the fence (which is shorter over there) right next to our enormous Coast Redwood tree, after they left us some parting gifts
Geesh.
Wow- how exciting! Glad they didn’t hurt anyone and left. Kudos for The Man getting the cameras on them. I hope they do not decide to come back. And I am also glad Gus didn’t find them.
Yeah, I’m really glad they left without causing any injury or damage. Didn’t want to take any chances with Gus agitating them so didn’t let him out to play at all yesterday, which was really a bummer since it was so nice out. Had to take him on a walk down the road instead. At least it was just one day.
I do hope they make it to a more remote area and winter safely!
Yep, me too! Must’ve hard to make good time traveling with cubs in tow. I was just glad wHen they finally found there way off our property. Took about an hour once they were down out of the tree for them to depart.