The Yearling

So I'm just sitting at my desk when I hear this strange scratching squeaking sound. My brain is searching to recognize at as I am running towards the sound. I get to the kitchen and find a black bear with his paw on the window and his long 3" nails scratching and squeaking as they slide down the glass. He was trying to reach my suet bird feeder which hangs from our fascia. I yelled at him through the glass and clapped my hands to scare him away - I was very afraid that our 35 year old single pane window wouldn't be able to hold his weight. Luckily he was scared off and ran away.

This is sort of what he looked like (not my photo): 

 - except our guy was very skinny. A couple of hours later I saw the conservation officer's truck go through our street so I hopped in the car to catch up with him. I guess another neighbour had called him.

The sad news is that this little guy is only about a year and a half old and has been recently kicked out of the den as his mother is about to have a baby. He's hungry and has become garbage habituated. The conservation officer told me they will set a trap and he will have to be destroyed because he can't be rehabilitated.

It makes me so sad that once agains humans messed things up. If we hadn't made it easy for the bear to find food in our neighbourhood, if we had cared a little more about nature and our surroundings, this little guy wouldn't loose his life. I know it's the circle of life, but we still shouldn't expedite it!

Graham the Needle Felted Bear

This is Graham. He is a circus bear. Oh no- he doesn't WORK at the circus, he just likes to go to the circus. And he especially loves when he can get a BIG cotton candy! He is a happy bear, see his heart is full of love.

He is made by a process called "needle felting"  - this is where you take raw wool that has been carded so the fibres align, but not yet spun into yarn strands. You shape the raw wool, or roving, and then with a barbed needle you continuously poke the object until the wool fibres are locked, or felted, together. This makes a compact piece that we can use to 'sculpt' shapes. By using a wire armature inside the piece they can stand on their own and often be posed to add more live to the piece. 

Wet and cold and hungry

So I'm sitting in my living room around 7:30 last night when I hear the lid of my mailbox open. Odd, I think for a Friday night, and then a moment later I hear another clunk in my front yard so I fly the door open, and what do I see? Two bears in my yard! The big one grunts at me as it runs. In my carport are wet bear footprints all over the floor. They had knocked over an empty garbage container (if there's anything in them, they are locked up in a room at the end of my carport.

About 10:30 I hear some noises outside and go to investigate. Jp tells me it's nothing, just the neighbour's car doors but I decide to peak out my front window and what do I see?? Yup, the two bears again. The little  one hopped the fence, sat on the top rail for a bit and then slipped down bum first before disappearing in the neighbour's yard. Then I felt really sad for them. I think the little one, who's fur was very wet from the heavy rain was tired. It's probably tired and very hungry. I hope they're able to find some food soon - just not people food.

Jp thinks they should be killed, but I just can't agree with him. They're not doing anything wrong. They come to our neighbourhoods because many of us are sloppy and lazy and there's often something to eat in a container outside our houses. People don't pick up the apples from their trees and so the bears have to scavenge for meals - maybe even the odd stray cat? I don't know. If people were more diligent and there was no food to be found, I'm pretty sure the bears would look elsewhere. As usual, humans create the problem and the animals pay for it.

Bear Country

Goodness! My American friends must think all of us Canadians live in the bush when I tell them that during this morning's dog walk Eco and I found ourselves 12' from a bear! We are in a residential, suburban neighbourhood but we are on the side of a mountain so nature is never really too far away in my community.

As I was walking along, I spotted dark fur above some plants, and my first thought was "that's too tall for a dog" and I was cautious because a loose big dog is not a good thing but as I got closer I saw it was a bear - also not a good thing to run into. It was a young, smaller bear and my next thought was "where's it's mama?" and my third thought was "I should take a picture" but safety rules and I knew that allowing myself to be distracted by a camera would be a bad idea, especially since I was still expecting to see another one. By now the bear, who hadn't responded to me talking to it or waving my arms, was just standing still watching up as we crossed the road and distanced our selves. Once we got far enough I snapped this:

And then the bear went up the steps to the elementary school - it was 6am this morning and I'm sure he carried on and will be long gone before the kids get near. But don't worry, I did report it just in case.

Panda Baby

I couldn't resist making this adorable panda hat for babies for the next newborn photoshoot:

I think it's adorable.

My brother's going to get mad at me for saying this (too negative, he says) but I never like putting on ears or other parts like this as  I never seem to get them straight no matter how hard I try, but I think I finally got this one  - I only had to pick and resew an eye patch once, and remake the nose (it wasn't salvageable after I tried to unpick it). Now I can't wait to see it on a little baby's head!

And, if you'd like to see how to do it yourself, or compare what it should look like, then head on over the to the designer's blog KnitProCro (I just love that name!)

Finished piece is for sale in my Etsy shop, see sidebar at right for link and photo.

Bear-y season

June is usually the beginning of the berry season starting with Strawberries and then on to others such as blueberries and raspberries but in our neighbour it's also time for a black bear! So we have Bear-y season!

I think part of the reason is because we've had such poor weather which means many plants are behind schedule leaving the bear with less food than usual, and so he's discovered that almost everyone has a black plastic garbage can that's really easy to open and holds some yummy things. Yesterday he had a neighbour's garbage pulled out to the street and there was a nice big takeout container of spaghetti. He must of loved that - or come to think of it, maybe not since they were lots of it left for me to identify! On my morning dog walk it was pretty evident that he went in and out of just about everyone's driveway/garage/carport looking for food - and may have gotten enough to eat because I know of two mounds of scat in our area - and don't tell me there's probably more than one! Did he bring his friends? Or her babies?

I tell you - it's scary to look out my single paned window and see this thing the size of a Volkswagen only about 10' from the house! If he wanted in, he could easily do it! Eep!

And yesterday I saw some black fur on some barbed wire on the back corner of my property so he may have been in my backyard too! Not going to let the dog out at night anymore!

The sad part is that we humans can't learn what not to do and he's probably going to lose his life if we can't learn or stop being lazy about our garbage. It's all a very sad situation isn't it?

Photo credit: http://wildanimalsnames.blogspot.ca/2009/03/black-bear.html

Nature bah!

Ok, add mosquitoes and crows to my "I'm not a fan of nature list" this week. Bears and squirrels have been on it for a while.

Thanks the the flooding of the Fraser River, which happens almost every June, we're getting more mosquitoes. Time for another PSA  - people, please make sure to dump any standing water, it might help a bit. Stop moving for a second and you're practically covered! Even the poor dog has a bunch landing on her when she stops running.

Next on the list: crows. Normally I adore crows,  they are so smart and sophisticated in their culture,  but cawing loudly at 4am does not win many friends. Something's up in the neighbourhood, they've been really noisy the last couple days and at least two of them are perched in trees around my yard keeping an eye on things  - maybe they can see the bear sleeping in the tree, or maybe he's sleeping in THEIR tree!?

And thanks to the squirrels and the bear - I have had to stop feeding the birds. This makes me really sad because I truly adores seeing the Goldfinches, Sparrows, Siskins, Chickadees, Juncos and Grosbeaks to name a few. Even the Flicker would stop buy a couple times a day. But after the bear smashed a bunch of them to the ground and the squirrel chewed off the little cups so he could get to the food easier, I've put the feeders away.

Grosbeak

I have no idea what's going on out there but between the animals and insects and the crappy cold and rainy weather, it's not so fun being outside at the moment.

I sure hope JULY will deliver the summer we are so desperately needing! What's nature doing for you?

Scat!

I am not a fan of nature right now.

Yesterday when I was working in the garden, I heard 'water' falling from a height, since no one around me was on their balcony, I'm pretty sure that was our neighbourhood black bear who can be seen sleeping in a tree in the yard next door. I guess if you're 30' up and laying on a branch, you might just pee from up there too.

Local warning sign

Later I was in the corner of the yard pruning some plants and I was thinking about the bear and all sorts of related scenarios, when suddenly I realized it was really quiet - no humans making noise, no birds chirping, then I heard some dogs bark - the ones that usually alert us when the bear's on the move - so when  I heard a leaf fall and bounce through all the branches of the tree above me I  just about gave myself a heart attack with an overactive imagination!

I was in the yard around 7:30 last night and then went inside. Around 10pm I made lots of noise and entered my yard to let Eco out, shining my flash light all over the place - and then I found it - a big pile of bear scat!!!! That bugger had already been  through my yard and took a dump in it!!! Yah, we went right back inside....

Yep, I really did post a picture of poop

Bye Bye Birdie + Holy &^%$ a Bear! (again)

Yesterday morning I let the dog out in our backyard and found the pole with my birdfeeders on the ground and my feeders basically destroyed. Then as I went around to the front of the house down the driveway to take Eco for a walk, for the first time in my life, I found the contents of my garbage can strewn across my front yard - something had dragged it about 10' feet from where it was. I don't like picking up my garbage from my lawn. But my garbage can was not the only one of interest - during our walk I saw about 8 cans turned over with the contents scattered over people's lawns or the street.

Later in the day, I smelled something fishy in the yard and as I followed my nose, I peered over a neighbour's fence to find that young black bear having a lounge along their fence. He was about as surprised about me as I was about him. I called Wildlife Canada but they didn't care. Even though we are a block away from an elementary school it, they didn't care. The RCMP will only do something if the bear is actively threatening someone.

After alerting the neighbours,  he was seen a couple more times later in the day. I spoke with a lady is is managing the Bear Aware program and she happened to be at our school earlier in the day to talk to the kids about bears in the neighbourhood! She said she'd be coming door to door in our neighbourhood to talk to people about this bear. She figured that because he's so comfortable around us (not only by lounging amongst us, but being out during the day), that he would most likely have to be killed before the end of summer.

So no more birdfeeders for me. I will miss my sweet little companions. I will have to leave the feeding to people who can hang the feeders off their balconies of their two story houses. As well, we'll have to find a way to keep our garbage in the house until the morning of garbage day. Did you know there is a by-law about putting your garbage out the night before? I guess many people don't know that because I've seen lots of people putting their garbage out the night before.

And after I was sure the bear was no longer in the neighbouring yards, I continued to search for the bad smell. I found the source - a poor animal that crawled under my shed to die.  I will try to throw some dirt on it, but in the mean time, I will not be spending too much time outside - good thing it's cold and crappy weather!

Edited: First, he WAS still in the neighbouring yard - he was sleeping in a tree in the yard beside me, I couldn't see him, but my neighbours could and then, he was in my front yard last night around 11pm, about 8 feet from my front door - eeep!

What a day!