A Very Large Bear Lumbers Into View
A jolt of excitement hit me as I heard the sound of something large in the woods and saw this bear saunter into the lower garden. As luck would have it, I’d been trying (without success) to get a good photo of our resident, breeding Chestnut-sided Warbler so I had a 400mm lens in my hands. I could hardly believe my eyes.
Very large and slow-moving, the bear lumbered through the wild raspberries and ferns at the bottom of our yard. No cubs followed. It sniffed the air and then chilled out for a few minutes.
It’s hard to believe that this sleepy, sluggish bear can actually run 30 miles per hour. It appeared docile, but I’m no fool – in a flash, I was back up on my second floor deck within a few feet of the door.
It turns out that Black Bears have one of the best senses of smell in the animal world. They can smell a human a mile off. This one sure had an enormous nose. I’m sure he could smell me and the hummingbird feeder I was standing next to. After a few minutes of sniffing, he wandered off, leaving me feeling thrilled and very lucky that morning.