Ping and Thud

It was about 9:30 at night, H and I were listening to a discussion of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) that’s sweeping across the globe and is impacting our society in ways we are only beginning to understand – and may affect the two of us profoundly since, at our ages, we’re both in a high risk group.

From the kitchen we heard a combination ping and thud that we’ve occasionally heard in past springs. “Bear!” we both thought, since that’s the sound produced when a bear pulls down the feeder, suspended on a wire, outside the kitchen window. We went to the window, and there in the light of the outside floodlight, was a moderately large male black bear licking up the sunflower seeds that had been in the feeder –

He must have heard us talking or perhaps had seen us peering out the window, for he rose and gradually walked uphill into the dark of the night.

The next morning, on the side of the house there was a smeared muddy footprint left by our visitor –

The camera traps on the hill above the house captured videos of the bear in his journey –

So much for leaving the feeder out at night, the feeder will be spending the night in the garage while the bear spends its evenings searching elsewhere for a meal.

In this time of COVID-19 (coronavirus) I've been fortunate to be able to get out in forest and field where there is seldom another person to be seen and it’s easy to self-isolate. Unfortunately, this crisis will almost certainly continue for quite some time and probably get even worse; I’ll try to keep getting outside and bringing you accounts and photographs of the great outdoors.

All the best to you and yours, wherever you may be – stay healthy.