We had a young black bear come visit us after dinner tonight; he was a bit late for dinner at our house, but he was just in time to raid some of the garbage cans in the neighbourhood.
Annette and I were just running out the door around 8.30 PM to do a couple of errands, when we seen a lady across the street on her cell phone, looking at our house. As we came out she shouted "there's a bear in your yard"!, nothing new there: we have had several visits over the years since we've been here.
We went back in the house and looked out the windows into the back yard; the bear was standing on the back fence. As we have a short yard, he was only 40 feet or so from us, so we could tell it was a male! :)
The noise we made opening the back door must have scared him, as there was garbage in our back yard that he was evidently dining on. He was now on the fence, balancing on the fence like a ballerina. Annette tried to get a picture, but he jumped down into the neighbour's yard behind us and sauntered over to their garbage cans. At this point I ran and got my cam corder and started taking some video.
He dined on the neighbour's stuff for a while, then the noise from the neighbourhood on the front street scared him, so he walked back to our fence, looked over at us 40 feet away, and then jumped up on the fence and walked along the fence into the neighbour's yard behind us and one door over. There he found some more good eats in their garbage cans, and dined there until the noise again scared him away.
Back up on our rear fence, he tight rope walked the fence and then dropped into our neighbours next door. He checked out their down stairs door, then decided he had had enough of the neighbourhood talking about him. He went along the side of the house into the front street, and then ran across the street into the ravine area across from our house.
A couple of screechers from a neighbour probably got him moving further into the ravine and away from the neighbourhood. A good example of a surprise for the neighbourhood, and why the Bear Aware program is important. Easy meals will keep this guy coming back until he can't find good eats around here.
10 comments:
Everybody needs a little excitement in their lives - keeps us on our toes!! Hopefully lesson learned by some to keep garbage put away so the wild animals don't take the easy way out
I wonder if it’s the same family that lives behind my place. :) momma and 3 cubs?
Rick
Hello Ed...and family! You guys are always into something new and different and this time it was a hoot. What a neat visitor. Glad you had your camera at the ready because it was MOST enjoyable
Jerry & Evelynn
Great shots of the bear in your backyard. Hope he did no damage. I ran into a bear on my last geocache but with my can of bear spray and police whistle i wasn't worried. I blew the whistle a couple of times and he ran off quickly.
Ron
That's awesome!
Val
Hey ED and Annette.
Nice Bear, He really knew his way around the neighborhood huh. ahahah
take care cheryl
wow! where abouts do you guys live? That's a bit scary... but the poor guy was just hungry right? I sure hope I never meet a hungry bear while geocaching in the woods! :.
LOL….bold as brass that fella !!!!!
John Drake
NICE… puts the male and female Cardinals I have in my back yard to shame..
Steve Apperley
Got a chuckle out of your bear video; I’ve had close encounters with bears, but never on my back fence! He certainly seemed pretty confident and casual about taking lids off garbage cans and swiping out the contents, and looked pretty relaxed while eating the goodies. You must live up close to the mountain, I’d think, to have bears wandering through.
Margaret
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