Family of Four Bears

A mid-week hike turned out to be quite an eventful morning. Hiking one of my favorite places, I stopped for a few minutes to rest. Looking up, about eighty yards away a sow and one second year cub stepped into view. The two bears continued across the road and milled around in a growth of hardwood saplings. The wind was in my favor, I sat hoping the bears would reappear. It wasn’t long the sow and cub walked back onto the road to meet two straggling cubs. The family of four wouldn’t stay still long enough for a family portrait.  The wind shifted and that immediately put the sow on alert, she stood up on two legs, making a complete circle in effort to locate what direction my scent was travelling. Recognizing danger, she dropped down to all four and the bears disappeared into the distant woods. This was a perfect example of where the wildlife experience outweighed any picture opportunity. It was a thrill seeing the family of bears.

Jim

Bear Home Range Potential / Reconyx TC Firmware Updates

I was able to get out this morning and make one camera trap set. A sow and cubs use this secluded area as part of there home range. I'll leave the set for a month or so and see what happens.

Reconyx firmware updates. Visiting the Reconyx website the other day I noticed two firmware updates. One for the Hyperfire and the other for the Ultrafire. The process for updating was very easy following the Reconyx directions.

Jim

Note Your Trail Camera Locations

Stupid Is As Stupid Does – That’s me!

Last fall I shared that my first camera was stolen. Wrong!

A neighbor hiking located the camera and asked me if it was possibly belonged to me. A bit embarrassing seeing that it is just up the road from my home, and I went back three or four times looking for it! I missed finding it by thirty yards. When I set the camera out last summer I was confident I could locate it noting land features. WRONG!

Lesson Learned: Write down where your camera(s) is in a notebook or take a GPS reading when setting camera traps. Especially when you have a number of camera traps set in different locations.

The lost trail camera was set out last June – March (10 months). The lithium batteries were still working. The TC took 1,500 pictures, capturing eleven different critters.  Turkey,raccoon,squirrel,coyote,deer,bobcat,bear,otter,opossum,fox,porcupine.

Jim

Having this one bear den occupied by two different sows over last two winters has been an incredible experience for me. It’s not only the thrill to share with all of you, but also to learn. Over the last several months I have read many books on black bears, learning all I can about this beautiful animal. It’s neat to be nearing retirement and still enjoy learning (about certain things).

Camera Trapping & Learning go hand and hand!

Jim

Time To Put Out Trail Camera's

The swamps are " Coming Alive " with activity. The above trail camera set was by far my most productive set in 2019. I was able to setup another camera trap for 2020.
Bears have been pretty active in some of my other areas. I hope to get a number camera traps set out in the next few weeks.
While out and about this morning a gray fox crossed the road a good distance in front of me. Slowing down to look were it was headed , I spotted  an out crop of large boulders . I have driven by this area many times and never noticed theses rocks. Next time by you can bet a trail camera will be set out.

Jim

The bears had left the den site on March 5th and returned for one day on March 8th. 

Not sure why they came back and only spent the day. Maybe the safety of the secluded den site.

The opportunity presented the best sequence of videos . Glad they came back !

Jim

Signs Of Early Spring

It appears the bears have left the den site sometime on the evening of March 5^th. The last time stamp showing one cub was at 1:32 PM. I was hoping to capture a picture with all four bears, thatdid not happen.

The sow didn’t spend much time outside the den during the daylight hours, TC’s were programmed off during night hours to minimize disturbance.  One cub which I nicknamed: “Homemaker” (assumption on my part that it’s the same cub) was constantly outside the den during the day racking in leaves and ground matter into the den entrance.

One trail camera was left at the den site to confirm they family of bears have moved on.

Jim