I’m lucky to live in a beautiful part of the world with lots of interesting wildlife. We see a lot of animals right here at our house that would cause traffic jams in places like Yellowstone. I have photographed elk, moose, owls, porcupines, pine martens, coyotes, foxes, and more in my yard, often right through the windows. However, up until this year, I’d never spotted a bear up here.
This spring, my wife and son got the chance to see a mama black bear with two very small cubs right next to our driveway. Of course, as luck would have it, I was out of town at the time and missed the show! A neighbor caught some of the action on video.
Fortunately, these bears have come back to visit a couple times in the last couple weeks. Yesterday, we discovered them in the back yard around 1 pm. They were here until dark, and must have spent the night nearby, as they were back first thing in the morning today, and stayed until almost noon. Black bears like to eat clover, and there’s a lot of clover growing in our yard, so they spent a lot of time grazing, almost like deer or elk!
Mama bear was small, but very healthy looking. She had a lot of houndstongue burrs stuck in her fur, but was nonetheless quite an attractive bear. (I wished I could have gone out to pick the burrs out of her fur, but I don’t think that would have gone well!)
The cubs had grown a lot, but were still small. They could easily disappear from sight in the tall grass. This made photographing them a challenge, but every now and then one would emerge into a clear spot and I could get a good shot.
The cubs were extremely inquisitive! They liked to explore the house, trying to climb the deck posts, investigating faucets, and peeking in windows. (Or perhaps just looking at their own reflections?)
Probably due to the reflections in the windows, they seemed not to know we were watching, even when they came up close and looked in a window we were on the other side of. A couple times, I was practically nose-to-nose with a bear cub, with only a pane of glass between us! This was pretty challenging for photographs with a long lens, but not impossible.
It rained off and on while they were here, and mama bear would lead the cubs into the shelter of a tree – still in view from the house – when the rain got too heavy. They would take a little nap until the rain quit, then they would come back out and go back to grazing.
Eventually, around lunchtime, they took shelter under a tree, and the next time I looked they were gone. However, I’m hoping they’ll be back again at some point. They’re welcome guests, as they’re fun to watch and don’t cause any problems.