The Bears

Photo show two black bear cubs and a mama bear in the woods on a sunny day.

With everything we had going on this year, it had been awhile since we had the card in our trailcam to record our backyard visitors, but a few weeks ago, we found some time to put the card back in, and this weekend we retrieved it to see what we had recorded. We were not disappointed.

There were our usual deer and squirrel videos, though one of the deer videos was extra special because it captured a couple of fawns nursing from their mama. We also saw a deer who appeared to be trying to eat the camera and the strap holding it up. I wonder if this culinary daredevil is the same one who has decimated my patio planter. There was also a wild turkey who wandered past the camera and then hung out for awhile. Our neighbor’s dog showed up at one point.

But by far our favorite was seeing the mama bear and her four cubs. You can only see two of the black bear cubs and mama’s backside in the still above, but it was a treat to see them mosey on through. We had heard others nearby who had spotted the bear out in their yards, but we hadn’t yet caught a glimpse. According to the camera this family strolled through the yard around 11 on a Sunday morning.

I lived in the Poconos for several years, where the bears tend to be more like neighborhood animals, like squirrels, say. Really, really big squirrels. I recall one summer evening when I decided to eat my dinner out on the front deck. It was a deck that was basically at ground level. So, when a bear brushed past the deck rail just a few feet from me, I decided to eat the rest of my dinner inside. Another day I watched a bear climb up into my crabapple tree and give it a good shake so it could gather up all the fallen fruit and have itself a little feast in the front yard.

Before I ever lived in the Poconos, I used to spend many summers up there at Grandma’s vacation house. One day my sister Emily and I were playing ping-pong in the garage with the door open. My sister stood in the driveway, while I stood on the opposite side looking out at the driveway. While my sister was busy smashing a bug with her ping-pong paddle, a bear strolled across the driveway no more than a couple of feet from her.

I made what was probably a weird face while I tried to silently communicate to her that there was a bear right behind her, and she needed to come inside immediately. She thought I was making a big stink about her killing the bug, which to be fair is the sort of thing I would have made a big stink about. When I told her as quietly as possible (so as not to spook our ursine visitor) that there was a bear behind her, she knew I was just messing with her, and she was not about to fall for my joke and look behind her. By the time she finally turned to look out there the bear was walking off into the woods.

A year or two later we were back at Grandma’s Pocono house, and one of Emily’s friends had come along. We had told Megan the story about the bear who had nearly joined us in a game of ping-pong so naturally when Megan and I tried to tell Emily to get off the swing in the front yard and come inside because there was a bear, my sister knew that we were just messing with her. She pretended she couldn’t hear us and swung higher. So, once again she was pretty shocked when she finally saw the bear and realized that we were not actually trying to trick her.

Fortunately the bears around here, are not all that interested in people. As long as you don’t get between a mama bear and her cubs and don’t do something stupid like try to feed the bears, they are content to leave people alone. I wonder if we’ll catch them again on the trailcam, and I wonder who else will show up in our yard.

— Alissa