Yellowstone - Part One - The Black Bears

Since my first visit to Yellowstone over 10 years ago, it always has been a magical spot for me and I yearned to go back. This year I perused the travel packages available through the park and found one that seemed catered just for me. It was called Spring Wolf and Bear Discovery. It was a small guided tour package over multiple days and they even gave you your own cabin.  I just had to go. So I booked it, made all my travel arrangements, and counted down the days until my trip. It was marketed as having somewhat rigorous hikes so I started training at the gym at the beginning of March and bought new hiking boots. I knew that we would see black bears and I can't say that I was that excited to just see more black bears since I can see them in New Jersey, but out there they come in different colors. One of which is called cinnamon.  So that was interesting enough to hold my attention and even in New Jersey I don't pass up a bear sighting.

Our first sighting included a distant and obscured view of a sow black bear and her two cinnamon cubs.  It was a madhouse in the parking lot and we passed the time making sure we were all looking in the right area and guided others visually to that area.  We waited patiently for something to happen, because all we could see was a small black patch of fur and occasionally a cinnamon patch of fur near a tree.  


Our initial view of the sow black bear and her two cinnamon cubs.

 Then something started happening and they started to move around. I got a lot of blurry and obscured shots of the trio.  I was panning around trying to find them and accidentally got two shots of an adult cinnamon black bear.  In my small camera viewfinder, I thought "Grizzly?," but convinced myself it was just a shot of one of the cubs although I was skeptical.

The cinnamon adult black bear.

Then the cubs scurried up the tree and gazed to the right.  Mom had been hidden for quite awhile.  It turns out the trio had seen the adult cinnamon bear and the cubs took refuge up the tree. In the meantime, we spotted another adult black bear and I grabbed a few awful distant shots of him as he ambled among the dense and distant brush.  The cubs were still hanging out and we took off to find other animals.  



The cubs up the tree.

We came back later, when it was pouring, and found the tree much closer and slowly ambling about. They posed like champs, but the photos showed signs of the heavy rain. 

The trio up close.

The next morning the group met at 6 am for the day. It was much more peaceful and quite at the time. We went to the same area that had all the activity above to see what bears we could see.  Instead of the mad house, there was only a handful of cars and it was so quiet you could hear a needle drop.  There was a black bear ambling about pretty close and the best parts was him scratching himself with a pine tree. They tree was already missing branches meaning it's probably much loved by this and perhaps other bears.  So he scratched away and then came back later for seconds.   

Everybody loves scratching their itch.



Here he is post scratching. 

We had other very distant views of other black bears or fleeting drive by glances of black bears up and down steep embankments surrounded by a mob scenes complete with people parking in the middle of the road.  I didn't take photos of those because they would be awful sitting butt shots at awful angles. 

Our tour ended and I had 1 1/2 more days by myself to explore the rest of the park or do whatever.  One early evening, I stumbled upon another mob scene of people.  It was this guy ambling about the dense brush and he too had an itch that needed scratching. It's also possible and likely that both bears were marking their areas with less to do with itchiness.  After he finished scratching, I thought he was doing the stiff legged walked and I asked my neighbors but no one had any idea what I was talking about.


Another itchy chap.



All better!



Nightwatch

Early in June we had a crazy period of time were we had watch nesting turtles at night. It went for 7 days a week. Thankfully we all rotated so no one had to be out there every night. The first night I was out there most of us got to watch a successful nesting of a turtle. I didn't bring binoculars and chose to be catcher of the turtle once she was done so I didn't see her at work. I was rocking two walkies...one walkie I could only hear out of and the other walkie I could only talk in. After sometime, I got word that she was done and to catch her so that we could photograph and mark her. As I rushed over, she just sat there on the side of the stream. She gave me the look of "I'm exhausted and now you are going to eat me." I was able to see that she was marked so I let her be and took a couple horrible photos. My camera's flash doesn't work and it was at that I point I resolved to buy a new work camera. Hence the blurry photo above.

The second night I was out there was just me and one of my bosses. We split up at dusk and I ventured down a small trail to check out one stretch of the stream. When you leave me alone, that's when the weird things happen. Sure enough as I was walking I heard a minor noise in the very dark woods. It was getting dark and the hemlock woods were pitch black. I chalked it up to a squirrel but my spidey sense said otherwise. I kept going to my destination and headed back. As I was walking back, I heard a rare bird calling and another bird going crazy. Next to this and near the woods, I saw a bush being repeatedly tugged at. I get on the walkie and relay this to my boss as I continue to watch it. We chat back and forth and then I see the darkness behind the bush (which I thought was from the lack of light) turn into a bear head. It had the look of "Oh hiya. Didn't see ya. Don't mind me as i eat this bush or those baby birds." Needless to say, I headed back to my boss.

A few days ago we went to check on our radio tracked turtles. The new turtles were crazy far away and the beginning of our journey was immediately met with weirdness. We were venturing down that same narrow trail and heard a noise that sounded like an elk (not in NJ) or what I called a giant housecat throwing up but doubly fast. We immediately turned around and away from it and went to get a better view of the action. We saw nothing and went through our internal database of what that could be. We came up with momma bear telling her cubs that danger was near. We went around it to the road and were met with a bunch of senior hikers. They said they weren't making weird noises but had been on that same trail. They must have spooked it and we were the icing on the cake. I looked it up online and it sounds like concerned mother black bear, so we were correct.

Bear #4

I was enroute to check my camera trap and was travelling down bear highway as I call it. This is the same road I saw two bears from the car a couple weeks back. I've been down this road a few more times and hadn't seen any bears. I think that's because I was a passenger in someone else's car and we were driving the speed limit. Today, I was solo, driving slow, and looking for bears. I hit paydirt. There was one on the other side of the road. So I pull over and jump out the car. It was big and had two ear tags. It probably means it's gotten in trouble two times. I just hope that three strikes doesn't mean it's out aka dead....but it probably does. Da bear was rooting around in the leaf litter and took a minute to scratch it's butt on a tree. I called over to it a couple times and it only stopped and looked over at me once. Clearly I was not a threat or food to it. I actually was quite boring to it. The only time it got scared was when a tractor trailer went by, but it only scampered a few feet. Most of my photos came out horrible. Apparently, mist, super zoom, target partially hidden by trees, the threat of being hit by a car, and shaky hands always means a blurry shot. This is the only in focus shot. I did manage to shoot two short videos. See the combined effect below.

"Astonishing" news: bears are in NJ

I'll pretty much watch any show that has a live bear as a central story. I got sucked into a show that was trying to figure out if some ancient giant bear had survived in Alaska by breeding with grizzly bears. A monster bear if you wish. Cue the montages of random hunters who had killed strange bears and their trophy photos. There's the polar/grizzly bear hybrid and the polar bear way inland. They only hang on the coast so it was strange to see a bear inland...kind of like Lost. Then my favorite part was "astonishing" footage of a mother black bear and her three cubs shot in a New Jersey backyard. Of course, there were interviews with the concerned mother who was living in a brand new house who had bears walk through her backyard. Funny thing. If you build a house in bear country, you will have bears around. It's not their problem when they are enticed by your garbage or bbq. They are just like us. If there's an easy option they will take it. But somehow these bears are labelled as a threat. Something must be done...i.e. hunt them down. Then there's the footage of a NJ hunter stalking with a bow and arrow through his backyard woods. They spot a bear in the distance in the woods and the hunter goes "If it looks over here, be very still and quiet." Why? Are you afraid it might see you and attack? That's unlikely. Are you concerned it might run away? Of course, the bears runs off once it spots them.

What I do know is that black bears are about to become a large problem in NJ. Their population is exploding. It should be mandatory that residents in bear country have bear proof garbage containers. People say a yearly bear hunt will solve the problem. The real problem is that the bear hunt only takes place in remote woodlands where the bears are living lives relatively untouched by people. It's the problem bears that live in developed areas that feast on garbage that should be the target of any solution. Maybe I'm foolish, but I actually want to live in the heart of bear country. Maybe it's the grass is always greener on the other side, but it'd be the closest thing I'd get to living in real nature.

Potential Cashew Sighting

At least a few times a week after work, I stop by the swamp where I let Cashew go. I must have been there like 20 times and have not had any success. I've seen a bunch of cool other things and lately I get to munch on blueberries and huckleberries. BTW, the berries are in full steam. See these berries below there were just out of my reach. Today the swamp looked really really dry. I didn't have too much luck finding much of anything until I spotted a little painted turtle and noticed it's shell was different. Could that be Cashew??? It quickly went under leaving only its head out. I must have had like 2 seconds to see the turtle fully out. It then hung out under water for like 20 minutes. I moved around a bit and called out her name. I was about to give up when I noticed the head was gone. Then I saw it a few more feet farther away. It was swimming on the surface but not fully out. But again, the shell seemed abnormally bumpy....bumpy enough to be Cashew. So I really think it was Cashew and it was only like 20 feet away from the release point. I'm just glad to see that she's adapted to being wild.

I was pretty groggy this morning eating my breakfast in front of the tv when I saw this news story flash on the screen for like 15 seconds. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. A man in Florida saves a black bear from drowning!!! That's what the pictures showed and all I could hear. It's true, but I missed the critical part of the bear being tranquilized and then running into the Gulf of Mexico as it became groggier and groggier. That's a man who loves his work.

Alpacas!

A new leaf has been turned. I am back at out at the site next to the beaver lake. I arrived on time and the day went perfectly. One of our stops was at the alpaca farm portion of the site. Of course, I had to try to lure them over. Here they are before I tried to beckon them over.
"Mom" as I called it came over to check me out. Babies didn't follow.
Since I didn't have food, she quickly turned around. But note all the cute various colored babies who were newly shorn.
The beginning of the day yielded this mossy well in the woods. I can't remember what sort of fairy tale troll is associated with wells, but this certainly would be a good candidate. But alas no troll was inside the well.
Here's another bear scratch mark....but no other signs of them out in the expansive woods.

There were a bunch of awesome story book houses on the site. Here's the one I most covet. You can barely see, but it's a great view of the backyard since the house sits on a hill. If the above one doesn't work out, how about this one below? Alas, it's still out of my budget range.

The only thing I can afford is the fixer upper. That's more like my price range. It comes complete with live in wildlife. I harvested some lily of valley in its backyard. They are now potted and on my deck. I clipped some past prime lilac and changed my mind once I realized that they were infested with bugs. Of course I didn't find this out until they were already in my car. So I have lilac blossoms and mysterious fruit fly sized bugs to keep the ticks company in my car.

Bear Condos

After my back aching day at the fancy farm, I had a very full day ahead of looking for salamanders and frogs along the big powerline job. My back was still aching bad enough that I was concerned that my full work day outside would do more harm than good. But I figured it would be better to be walking around rather than sitting at my desk all day. Most of the sites we hit were relatively easy walking distance from our vehicle. But come lunch time, my coworker suggested we hit one of the epic journey sites. I didn't want to be a big baby and had curiousity to experience it. I popped a couple advil just to be safe and stuffed my face with some snacks since we'd be heading into real bear country. We are talking no roads, treacherous terrain, poor cell phone reception, and minimal trails that will require a chainsaw to drive up farther. Looking at a map, I see that our trip was about 3 to 4 miles round trip. Speaking of bears, here's a bear scratching post. Note the three claw marks.
After we visited the pool and found the frog eggs, we headed across a broad wetland and a protected stream. I said that I'd like pee in it and made it safely across the first time. It was deep enough that you had to find a good spot to cross as to not overtop your knee boots. I did remark that the underwater rocks were quite slippery with algae. On the way back I was less fortunate and I slipped on a rock and fell in. My left boot took a full drink, my right foot took a small sip, and my left arm got wet. Thankfully, my cell phone, camera, field note books, and maps made it out dry. I only have one small bruise and my back survived in one piece.
Our next stop was a talus slope, which is a collection of large boulders at the base of a cliff. To me, it was bear condos. There were so many good spots for hibernation dens. I'm not part mountain goat, so scrambling over small car sized boulders proved to be a challenge. I will say it's far easy to go up. Our mission was top secret, but I will say I got to see porcupine quills. I've never seen a porcupine in NJ or anywhere except a zoo. I was really happy our mission was over real quick because I kept thinking about how one of these boulders might shift and start tumbling down or a boulder will fall off the cliff. There was even still some ice left in some bear condos! Crazy.
This epic journey may have to repeated several more times. Turns out that broad wetland we crossed could be habitat for some of super rare turtles. I was laughing the first time we crossed out saying "I'm real glad we don't have to survey for turtles out here. The walk in and out would be insane."

Line walking Part II

I'm having one of those weeks where I feel like I'm never home. I mean I sleep at home but that's about it. Stuff is starting to pile up....laundry, dishes, garbage, recycling, etc. But I managed to escape from work early today so I'm busy catching up while checking work email.
I was out walking the line again this week. I lost a second pair of sunglasses and had another good couple falls. I did remember my real camera so I got to take some pics of the awesome views we get. Look at this soft dried grass (top pic). Looks like a perfect nature bed.

We haven't seen any bears yet. Although there was something big going through the brush early in the day. Probably just a deer but you never know. Birdman, my companion for the day, brought bear mace. I had a good chuckle because he just left it in the truck. So I'm not sure what he was planning to do if there was a dangerous bear encounter....Is he going to say to the bear "Can you hold that thought while I hike a long way back to the truck?"

A little bit of everything

I finally had a real field outing in what feels like weeks. I was out solo at a pretty big site close to home. I'm familiar with the area so I knew what I would be in for. The woods would have large trees with not much understory since it would all be eaten by deer and in the open spots it would like 100% invasive nasty thorny shrub species. This held true at this place.

The place is some sort of physical rehab center and I had to check in with the office. Thankfully I wasn't escorted around but the woman felt the need to tell me to watch out for the resident bear and that the deer were friendly (?ok??) and the sheep (double ???) were also friendly. I told her I was familiar with all and that I would be fine. I was on bear alert for the first hour and then after not seeing any signs of bears I mellowed out. But at one point I stopped to sit on the corner of a wall where two roads intersected. At first, the spot seemed fine but then it became stinkier and stinkier. I'm thinking if the bear was around it probably marked the spot and that's why it's so stinky. So I moved from that spot.

The site borders a large dammed lake with an old road around it. There's this fancy gate and some sort of sheep fountain. It was misting most of the morning but for whatever reason there are orbs in these first 3 pics. I would like to think they are ghosts but it's probably reflections off the mist. This road took a lot of work to put in with perfect rock walls on both sides. And everything is still in pretty good shape. It was so steep to the lake I couldn't even see it most of the time. All I saw was a slope covered by wisteria and was wondering how I would ever be able to hang flags down there in the right spots...anyone got mountain climing gear?

I had a few near falling situations on the steep slopes that are covered by rocks ranging in the size from gravel to the fist sized. You can see how steep the woods are in this pic.

Above is the big dam. I ventured out onto a small part of it and tried not to think about how high it was. This lake sure is going to be beautiful once the leaves change color on a sunny day.

Here's some ancient farm trailer complete with broken fan and other junk.

Bear town

Over my 5+ years working outside in NJ, I've only had a handful of bear sightings. The above pic is the only pic I have of a bear I personally have seen. Yes that black blob is a bear...mostly bear booty. This past year I worked at this very large property up near Wild West City that I affectionately called bear town. Bear town is an old farm/ranch and I've been there lots of times. In the fall, I was delineating the wetlands. The corn (diners for bears in my mind) was still up and the place was actively hunted for deer. So the guys who live there, one of which I affectionately called Grizzly Adams, would bait the deer with corn meal (more bear food). Actually I just googled Grizz Adams and he's pretty harmless looking so this guy would be his evil and older twin. Grizz Adams and his buddy would drive around in camo, drinking beers, with guns of course, and bait the deer. Now I don't have too much in common with these folks, but I know the few topics we share...bears. Grizz told me the largest bear he ever saw was on the this property and then the next week he told me they saw 6 bears in one day on this property. I was sure that I would see a bear especially since there was so much bear poop everywhere. One swamp in the back had poop every five feet on the trail and it reeked like a zoo. We did hear rustling in the bushes like 20 feet away that wasn't scared when I yelled out to it. Obviously the deer on the property were exceptionally skitish so it wasn't a deer...so it probably was papa bear. I never did see a bear there, but I sure was on super high alert when out by myself. The property had all these high ridges of rocky outcrops (bear condos in my mind) so I didn't like having my back to them. It was really disconcerting to go through thick brush. I did a lot of talking to myself and humming in hopes that I would not surprise anyone. I know how quiet they can be and the last thing you want to do is startle one. Now don't get my wrong, I really do want to see bears...just at a distance that's acceptable for both of us. Not face to face in a thicket. Today I was back out and we found a super fresh bear track but alas no bear. I think I have one more outing there...my last chance.

What we did see today was a pair of blue jay babies. I hope they are ok since they aren't in a nest and don't seem to be ready to fly. They were silent and relatively motionless. I think I have like 10 pics of them and each pic is progressively getting closer. I could make like a flip book of them.