My trail cams have started catching black bears again. The first one this year was on April 4th at the bear wallow. In the following videos a bear marks a tree and another enjoys a wallow at the secret spring.
Tag: nature
Nesting screech owls
This is year seven for the screech owls to use the backyard nestbox. They successfully fledged offspring the previous 6 years. Typical clutches started with three to four eggs with all nestlings fledging and hanging around the yard for a month or so, while learning the ropes from their parents before dispersing. Last year there were five eggs, but only one survived to fledge (I suspect secondary poisoning from rodenticide). In this video the male brings his mate a gecko snack while she incubates her eggs.
Four mountain lions
One of my cameras was lucky enough to capture a mountain lion family at a desert waterhole. The “kittens” are close to leaving mom and venturing off by themselves.
Bobcat Catches Fawn
Sensitive content! I did not expect to see this when I checked a couple cameras this morning. While I’ve found several old mountain lion kills based on the surrounding evidence, I’ve never seen anything that I suspected was a bobcat kill. This trail cam capture surprised me because I was not expecting anything like this would be captured by the trail cams, even after years of watching thousands of trail cam videos of deer and other wildlife doing their thing. I’ve reluctantly watched it a few times because while nature is beautiful, she is also brutal. The fawn and her mother are going about their daily business, eating, drinking water… Then in seconds, for the fawn, death appears in the form of a bobcat. Seemingly out of nowhere. Despite our big brain and intelligence, we humans are no different than the fawn. Death is the great equalizer, it can strike us anywhere, anytime.
Bears being bears
It’s the time of year in Arizona when the temps are hot and the black bears are always happy to find a watering hole, either to drink or wallow. The following three videos are from the last few weeks during one of the hottest and driest periods this summer.
Two bears and a mountain lion
Two bears and a mountain lion passed by this cam in the span of three hours. At 4:08 p.m. a mountain lion makes a scrape. At 5:37 p.m. a big black bear goes by and smells the fresh scrape. At 6:42 p.m. the mountain lion returns and makes another scrape. At 7:06 p.m. a smaller black bear walks by and stops to smell the fresh scrape. I find it fascinating how close in time these two wild predators came to running into each other.
Backyard Wildlife Action
Here in Tucson the summer heat is upon us. We’re in the somewhat miserable time between the cooler temperatures of spring and the onset of summer monsoons. The highs have been from around 100 to 110 degrees and with most natural water sources having dried up the neighborhood wildlife have been visiting the backyard water sources more frequently. Below are some of the recent visitors:
Black bear bath time
About two years ago I found an old, abandoned cattle trough that still held water. I realize now that it is an old spring box that still receives water from a nearby spring. The good thing is, it stays full of water during the Arizona dry season (between the winter rains and summer monsoons) and so is an important water source for local wildlife during times of water scarcity. For bears, water is not just a resource to drink, but also to wallow in and relax:
Mountain lion Flehmen response
About three months ago I was checking a camera I had set on an often-used bear wallow. Not far from the wallow, on the trail, was a fairly fresh mountain lion scrape. I decided to move the trail cam from the wallow and mount it on a tree looking at the scrape. This is one of the scenes captured by the trail cam:
Do bears sh*t in the woods? This video answers that question
A few weeks ago I found some bear tracks and a marking tree and decided to set up a trail cam and see what action it might capture. At the very least I was hoping to catch a bear simply walking by. After a week, I checked the camera and here’s what it captured:
A few days after the sow and her cubs passed by the camera site, this big male bear came through. He almost missed the scat pile, but then noticed it:
My Earth 