Wednesday morning, while in the kitchen making my lunch (for work) and deciding if I wanted to ride to work in the rain, I heard some skittering on the deck. All the cats were out, so I figured Tory and Fuzzy were having a minor tiff and I ignored it. Then I heard a loud BANG, and realized that it was the gate to the deck stairs hitting the railing.
“Man,” thought I, “the wind must really be howling.” I decided to check it out, as with wind that strong I definitely wasn’t going to ride. I turned on the back light and saw the gate swinging toward the rail again; this time more gently. Then it started swinging back to the closed position, then swung open again. About this time, I was about to go out and secure the latch, when I noticed fur near the top step. I figured it was Fuzzy, and I reached for the handle – then froze as a bear’s head came into view.
Dang, he (she?) was going to go for the feeders. My early warning system (the thistle feeder out at the clothes line) had been bypassed and he was going straight for the peanuts, suet and sunflower seeds. I thought for a second, as the bear face stayed right there, only half in view (it is really dark at 4:20 AM, expecially when it is raining). I opened the slider a couple of inches and half yelled at it, “Get going, get on out of here.”
The bear’s head slid out of view and I figured I would go out and retrieve the bird feeders. First though, I hade to figure out if the bear had actually gone down the stairs, or had just backed down a step. I grabbed a flashlight and shone it in the direction of the gate. It was closed so I slid out the door and over to the side of the rail and shone the light onto the steps. No bear – good! Then I heard the bear attacking the early warning system. I shone the light up the hill and sure enough, there he was working at getting the feeder. Good, he was occupied, so I grabbed all the feeders and brought them inside.
At this point, the dogs, who were sleeping downstairs with WS, decided to come up and investigate. They started woofing (softly). Thanks for nothing guys. Of course, the bear will go right by the dog pen, with the dogs in there barking their fool heads off, so it’s not like they would scare it off or anything.
I left a note for WS to put out the feeders before he left for work. For the next several weeks the feeders will be brought in at night, to discourage the bear from taking the trek up the deck steps.
And no, I haven’t found the thistle feeder yet. However, I haven’t been trudging around in the muddy, gloomy, rainy woods looking for it either. We’ll leave that for when it is sunny and dry.
Goodness! And we think we have it tough with keeping raccoons from marauding our feeders. Good luck.
Posted by: Cop Car | June 26, 2009 at 08:27 AM