Black Bear Rubs a Tree

A black bear was our latest visitor on the Mountain Top! At first I thought it was the neighbor’s Newfoundland dog as I saw it from the kitchen window just before dusk. He was right at our front door sniffing around the portulaca and dahlias. Then I saw his little round ears — not to mention the size of him. We pushed the dog into a different room so he would not cause a racket, but I don’t think the bear would have cared. He was ambling along at his own pace.

I ran for the camera and got this shot through a dusty garage window as he had rounded the side of the house to the back yard.

A black bear in the backyard walking over a small tree.

Did you notice that he is deliberating walking over this little maple tree, which is about 6 feet tall? There is plenty of grass on either side of the tree, so we think he was either marking his territory or maybe just scratching his butt!

From the back door we watched the black bear take down a few sunflowers to check them out – not ripe yet! Then he ambled back into the woods by the way of the compost heap. As he slowly walked into the woods you could hear the leaves go shuush-shuush-shuush!

Black bear shuffling back into the woods.

The berries have been ripening and that probably drew him here, along with the neighbor’s dumpster. Now that the corn is ripe, he is probably stuffing himself with corn. The farmer said that you can tell when a bear has been in the corn fields. The black bear is so lazy he justs sits in one spot and grabs all the corn he can from that spot, and so, will leave a circle of destruction where he sat in the field!