My Bear

A smoky sunrise that I couldn't resist photographing

Last weekend I heard a story about a bear wandering around in a suburb of Denver. This time of year we hear a lot of these kind of stories because it is fall and bears are hunting for food to keep them going during hibernation. It seems like most of these stories end with the “authorities” loading them up and “relocating” them. I'm not positive but I think North Park might be one of the relocation destinations!  There have been lots of stories about bears getting into my neighbors' dumpsters and hanging around people’s ranch buildings and cabins even when there is a lot of activity going on. I have been living ( or spending summers) up here for over 40 years and had never actually seen a bear around here although I have seen lots of signs of bears on my daily walks. Our neighbors have had plenty of incidents and sightings even on our land but I must not be very observant. This brings me to the story of “My Bear”.

One evening about 9PM I was minding my business and reading my book when I heard a light scratching on the screen of the west window. I looked up thinking it was a chipmunk or bird even though it seemed too dark for them to be out. I thought I saw a big paw but just then the phone rang. It is a landline so I had to go across the room to answer. It was my brother and we had some business to discuss. The phone is located next to a big picture window with a smaller window on each side. The windows look out on our porch and then down to the creek.  One of those was open maybe about 6 inches. As we were speaking I looked out on the porch and right below the big window I saw a brown furry back of an animal. I thought it might be a coyote, so I yelled out the open window “Shoooo! Get off the porch!”  

The infamous window where the bear stared at me!

To my horror a bear stood up, put his front paws up on the big window and stared at me not 2 feet from my face with only a pane of glass between us!!!  The phone was still in my hand up to my ear and I screamed and screamed as loud as I could!  Poor Tip’s ears must still be ringing! (I had heard somewhere to make a lot of loud noise to scare bears away). The bear quickly ran away and I “calmly” said to Tip, “Well, that scared him away.”  My heart was beating fast and Tip had no idea what was going on!  I explained and he was laughing with me by the time we hung up. In my mind I was thinking, “His face sure did look like a cute Teddy Bear!”  That night I locked the doors and grabbed my air horn that my son-in-law insisted I take with me on my hikes, and took it to bed with me.  HA!

The next night I was in town until after dark and decided to stay with Danny and Kathi overnight.  We were visualizing me having to make a mad dash in the dark from the car to the door with “my bear” chasing after me! 

 When I told my neighbor about the incident she asked me if the bear had cattle sized ear tags, one in each ear. There were no tags. She had an incident a few years before and the Fish and Game fellows told her if they were tagged they were relocated bears. Mine had no tags so I guess he was wild.

Well, that’s my bear story!  I have some other wildlife stories to tell but none that exciting!  Oh, and my grandsons wanted to know why I didn’t take pictures!  I told them I was too busy screaming! Hehehe!

The Moose are Loose!

Out for a morning stroll.

A few days ago, Bob and I were just getting going about 8 AM, when Bob happened to look out the back windows.  Out in the meadow behind the cabin were 2 big bull moose (meese, mooses??).  Bob ran (well, went as fast as his bad knees could go) upstairs to look at them with his binoculars and I grabbed my camera and went outside, in my sweater in 30 degree weather to snap some pictures.  Well, the snow was deep!  It was almost to my knees out by Harry's rock pile by the fence!  I got on top of the rocks for my pictures but was sure they would look like 2 black dots against a background of beautiful snow clad mountains.  They just stood there posing and watching us.  Their paddles were huge but they kind of blended into the willows in the distance behind them.  I finally came in and they hung around a little while and then wandered off into the trees.

Checking me out while I check them out!

Posing for the camera.

That afternoon I was on a cleaning kick and was really making some progress, using my new $8 Black Friday electric broom, over by the big window next to the piano.  I looked up and there were the two big bulls standing right where I had taken my pictures that morning looking in the window at me!  I couldn't believe it!  One of them had jumped the fence and was between the cabin and the rock pile!  I grabbed my camera again and took pictures right from the window.  Again, they just stood there posing with their big old paddles!

Our afternoon visitors.

He turned around on me!  Oh well look at those paddles!

The shyer one of the two.  He didn't come over the fence.

  Finally I decided to go outside and see how close I could get.  (OK, I'm not like the people with the bears up in Yellowstone, but I wanted a clearer picture.  I wasn't going to pet them or anything like that!)  They decided that was enough and wandered off back out into the meadow but stopped and turned to see if I was coming with them, which I wasn't!  I got one last shot of them as they bid us farewell.

So long, boys!

The next day we had to take the Argo over to the pickup and go into town.  I decided to put my camera in my outside pocket just in case I needed to take a picture of something.  (On our last Argo ride into the cabin we had seen a cow moose with her calf but my camera was not available!).  As we were coming out of the draw, a big moose ran out of the trees in front of us!  I pulled out the camera just in time to see 3 more big bull moose come trotting out .  I snapped a few quick pictures and then decided to take some movies of them as they ran alongside us out in the meadow.  They finally cut across in front of us and I felt great that I had gotten some great video of them.  (I have to say I was just pointing and shooting because of the bright sunshine).  When I went to show the ladies at the medical center what we had seen, we were disappointed to see that my battery had given out after about 2 seconds!  Oh well, I did get a few shots of them and here they are!  Well, one good one.

3 big bull moose running across the meadow!

Kind of blurry but then we were moving and so were they!

We are heading into the trees.  The video takes over from here!

We haven't seen any sign of moose since but my guess is that they are around!  The weather is windy and cold so they are probably in the trees somewhere.

My video taping actually did work, sort of, so I put just a short clip of it on here.  Look sharp between the trees!  I missed all of them crossing the road in front of us somehow.......  Be prepared for a bouncy view from the Argo!