Dotti-My Wild Life: Hide & Seek

It's Saturday, and I'm a bit slow to get my day under way. It was so nice last night, Shadow and Smokey decided to stay outside and play so they had me up late waiting for them. Geepers, I thought staying up late, waiting for the kids to come home on a Friday night ended many years ago. But the fur-kids have different ideas.

This morning, Buddy arrived prior to "opening" the Hard Rock Diner, but I would not have known it were it not for the best birthday gift I'd ever gotten, my Bushnell Trail Cam. I took my stroll and left the offering of corn and seed, and changed the SD card in the camera. Buddy was there less than an hour before me...

There are hummingbird feeders all around my house, a suet cake hanging on the deck and a squirrel proof (not bear proof!!) seed feeder hanging out from the deck post. We take the seed and suet in every night. A few days ago, Buddy dropped by and must have smelled the fresh suet cake I'd just put out. With nothing on the feeding rock, he decided to investigate a bit closer to the house.

A friend told me, my brain registered 'bear' more quickly than hers, since I see them so frequently. The first time I saw one, I thought, "man that's a big dog". But my friend is right, after all the 'sightings' I've had the pleasure of experiencing, I immediately know when I see that glimpse of jet-black fur. Not to mention that Smokey is like bear-radar. Not the inquisitive, spunky creature like Shadow, Smokey the Cat immediately comes inside if he senses a bear presence, and I know the look he gives. That signals me to grab a camera and run! And so I did, as Buddy sauntered towards the front stairs, and the suet feeder... what a glorious way to start my day,

seeing this guy. Camera in hand, I walked out to the head of the stairs, and shoo'd him off, but not before I snapped what goes down as one of my all time favorite poses of him. And yes, I swear he does pose for me. Anyway, even though the feeders were filled and hanging on the porch and there was nothing at the HRD this morning at a little past 10AM, Buddy did not venture towards the house. He has been told what was too close, and it seems he understands; the garden and decks are off limits. There is natural food in abundance in our woods, so we are just a stop on his routine journey in search of nutrition. Very early in the year {during what Dr Rogers (www.bearstudy.org) calls 'walking hibernation'} and at the end of the season before denning, the bears may push the boundaries a bit as their need for food and its scarcity play into their behavior.

Meantime, Smokey is snoozing in the sunshine atop the ottoman, while Shadow is snuggled into my down comforter. Wanna bet they sleep away most of the day, and go out for another late evening of fun and frolic? Ah... to live the life of a pampered rescue kitty! I used to think, like the joke I've read:
In my next life I want to be a bear. If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that. Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too. If you're a bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you're sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that. If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that. If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat. He KNOWS not to get between you and the food. Yup..... Gonna be a bear.

Of course, having observed the live den cam of Lily the Black Bear the past two winters, I now know that most of the information in the joke, as with what we have been told for eons, is false. Click this link to see a video of Lily giving birth to her cub Faith in January 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/user/bearstudy#p/u/120/AuH5ADPwx3Q

and go to www.bear.org to find archived videos of den days from 2010, and 2011. After watching a few, I suspect you'll agree, the life of a black bear is not at all what we thought it to be!! Maybe I would like to be a cat?