Birds and Nature

The black bear momma and her cubs come out from the forested area where they were feeding and continue on down the Riverwalk trail (after they disappeared behind the trees, I retreated a ways back on the trail just in case she decided to return back down the trail the way they-and I-had come and to make sure I didn't crowd them). The cubs investigate and play a little as they follow mamma, stopping to smell the roses (or more likely some berries), then running to catch up. The cubs sure look awful bow-legged, more so than momma. BTW, they are now at a safer distance so I am not moving away from (and knocking into) the camcorder to check on them with my binoculars so the video doesn't jump as in previous clips (can't really see as well through viewfinder and when she was close I kept monitoring her frequently). SeEtta

This is a video of a black bear with 3 young cubs that I shot at the Canon City, Co Riverwalk yesterday (this is the second clip, I am having problems editing clip I so it will go up later). The black bear momma stops for some food--and it's bear food not human food-yeah (sadly many who live near this natural area leave out garbage or worse yet bird feeders plus management of Riverwalk refuse to purchase bear-resistant trash containers--shame on them all). She is shown doing some digging, maybe for some roots or grubs. The cub next to her looks like it is tasting the tall grasses in this forested area of the Canon City,CO Riverwalk. When momma decides it's time to leave, the cubs begin to follow and one looks in the light to be a cinnamon colored cub. The end of this clip is pretty cute as each cub follows, and the last one runs to catch up. BTW-the bears are about 150 feet away (which was closer than I had intended) but close shots from 40X zoom. SeEtta

The weather was very hot today so I headed for a little higher elevation in the San Isabel National Forest that stretches from just south of where I live in Canon City, CO to the New Mexico border. Though the temps were in the lower 90's (instead of around 100 as forecast for Canon City), birding was quite slow likely due as much because of the very dry conditions as the high temps. There were few insects for birds to eat and few flowers for hummingbirds and butterflies due to the lack of rain. Since it was less hot and I enjoy the forest, I stayed for several hours checking out a few birds, a few butterflies and moths, and a few wildflowers with my two dogs. My smaller dogs, Chase, let out some alarm barking several times but I couldn't find anything that should have caused it. I did use my binoculars to check for critters and considered the possibility that a bear could be around especially since there is a lot of scrub (Gambel's) oak in the area. However I had checke...