The other day around 7:00 p.m. I was passing through the sun room and looked out the windows like I probably do about 50 times a day. I knew Alex and Bella were outside enjoying the cool spring evening, so when I saw two black objects down in the woodsy skunk cabbage part of our yard I wasn’t too surprised. I did wonder however what they were doing because they really don’t go down there that much. The very next minute my brain finally went CLICK. I looked on the deck and sure enough, there were Alex and Bella just laying there. The black objects were not my dogs! They were bears; the first ones of the season.

When my brain finally registered the fact that they were bears I couldn’t help but wonder why the dogs weren’t barking? Surely they saw them/heard them and Bella notices everything that even comes close to her yard. Yet there they laid, looking, but not making a sound. I could see now that the bears were not in fact in the yard but right on the other side of our chain link fence that borders the woods. A mother and two cubs. Big cubs for this early in the year. I quietly called the dogs inside and ran to put the zoom lens on the camera.

Here is what they looked like from the back deck where the dogs were laying.

I walked down into the yard to get closer, but not too much closer. After all, I don’t know this bear. Shooting through a chain link fence is not the best and it was getting dark but you get the idea. Here is the mother bear.

There were having a delightful meal of fresh skunk cabbage, ripping off huge leaves and munching them down like crazy.

She sees me!

I walked back up the house to continue watching them. Within a few minutes of getting back in the house I noticed that one of the cubs had come over the fence and was now technically in my yard. (There is a spot in the fencing that sags from so many bears going over it!) Back down in the yard I went with the camera. He heard the clicks of the camera before he realized I was there. He was very curious about what I was doing.

His sibling is still on the other side of the fence and curious too.

how’d he get over there????? maybe I should try ...

All too soon they had their fill of cabbage and moved on. It was nice to see them! I hope they come back soon.

YAYYY! I can’t wait to see them. Too bad there’ll be a hunt this year =(
You should come see my tulips - most years i get two, usually only one of which blooms.  This year I HAVE ELEVEN BLOOMING OR ABOUT TO!
enjoy the rainy weekend =\

What a show!  Maybe the dogs are bored with the bears….

Would the bears attack the dogs?

Joyce, the bears might attack the dogs if the dogs provoked them. We have had several instances of dogs chasing bears up trees in our back yard. Mostly the bears just want to be left alone, but like anything wild, you never know what they might do. The dogs don’t seem to like the smell of them.

The first year we were here the bears did not fully hibernate and one bear in particular would sleep curled up under a tree very close to the road. When I took our one dog, Sailor, out on walks, he would never look at the bear, but instead made it very clear he knew it was there but it was better not to look! Too funny.