Being a Mother is Not All Fun and Games

Especially if you are a bear. When you are one of the largest predators around there are not many things that will mess with you. Other then humans bears really only have one predator and that is another bear. Female black bears are considerably smaller then their male counter parts. During mating season if a male finds a female with cubs he will often attack and try to kill the cubs. If he is successful the female will go into estrus and he will have the opportunity to mate with her. But female bear do not give up lightly they will often risk their life to protect their cubs who are taught to climb a tree at the approach of an other bear.

Happy BirthDay

Today, April 22, is Earth Day. It's a special day where we show our appreciation for the natural world and are more aware of the things that we need to do to preserve it.On Earth Day 2007 I began the Ecobirder Blog. During the past six years there have been good times and bad times, there have been days where I could not wait to share pictures and posts and days where it took almost every thing that I had to write a post for the day. During all this time many of you have visited often and left comments and encouragements for which I would like to thank you. With out you this blog would not be here. It has become kind of a tradition to share pics from the calendars that I make each year on this special day. So keeping with tradion here are the pictures from the 2013 Ecobirder Calendar. 

Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO

Ferruginous pygmy owl San Miguelito Ranch, Tx

 Altamira oriole at Bentsen State Park, Tx

Sandhill crane colt Necedah NWR, Wi

Western grebe Bosque del Apache, NM

Cabbage white butterfly River Bend Nature Center, MN

Red-headed woodpeckers Necedah NWR, Wi.

Gold-fronted woodpecker  Santa Ana NWR, Texas.

 Pied-billed grebe Crex Meadows, Wi

Black Bear Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary, MN

 Gulf Fritillary Santa Ana NWR, Texas.

 Sandhill cranes Boque del Apache, MN

Northern Saw-whet owl Dodge Nature Center, MN

Thanks for a great year!

Black Bear Family

Now is the time of year when the American black bear goes into hibernation. As the bears sleep many of the sow will be giving birth. Black bears go into heat for a couple of weeks in June or July. Both males and females will mate usually mate more then once during this period and often with more then one partner. Once fertilized bear eggs will not begin to develop. Come November if the bear is in good shape the egg will implant in the womb and begin to develop. If the female is not in good shape the egg will be aborted and reabsorbed into her system. Females give birth while hibernating, usually in January or February. The cubs are born with their eyes closed and helpless. They depend on their mother for warmth and milk. After around a month they will open their eyes and shortly after that they will begin to walk. By the time they leave the den the cubs are five times heavier then they were when they were born. and their fur is thick enough to keep them warm. They will still depend on their mother for milk until they are nearly 8 months old. They will also rely on her protection for their first year and hibernate with her the following winter. After they are a little over a year she will chase them away in June or July before she goes into estrus and begins the whole process again.

Baby Black Bear

Minnesota has a healthy population of black bears. The MN DNR estimates about 20,000 black bears in the state mainly in the northeastern third of the state. The mating season for black bear is from May to July however the female black bear will not immediately become pregnant after copulation. She will hold the fertilized egg until around November. If she is healthy she will become pregnant and the cubs will be born in the den while she hibernates, usually January. If she is not healthy the egg is reabsorbed and the pregnancy terminated. I guess you can say that bears are pro choice. This youngster emerged from the den with his mom. If danger is nearby the first instinct of the cubs is to climb a tree. He will stay with his mom through out the rest of the year and hibernate with her the next winter. The following May before mom comes into estrus she will chase the cub away and make it known that it is time for it to be on its own.

Yellowstone Part 3

We started out Wednesday by heading back over to the Yellowstone Lake area by the Fishing Bridge. As we got to the lake, much of which was still frozen, we saw two small dark shapes out on the ice. We stopped to take a closer look and found that they were a pair of river otters. One otter, pictured above, seemed to be resting near the edge of the ice while the other was running around.
After the otters finally disappeared under the ice we headed out towards the east entrance. The road was still closed off due to danger of avalanche but we did find a couple of grizzly to photograph, one at Mary's Bay and another at Sedge Bay. Unfortunately we still were not able to find the grizzly sow and cub.
Since the sky was beginning to clear up we decided to head back around the southern end of the park so that we could get some pictures of Old Faithful erupting. We had tried a couple of days earlier but the weather that day made it difficult to get good shots. With nice blue skies the pics turned out much better.
After Old Faithful we headed up to Mammoth and the north entrance to the park. We had hoped to get some more shots of the new born big horn lamb that we had seen a couple of days earlier but as we came around the corner we could not see the sheep on the cliff face where we had seen them earlier. We did see some cars pulled off a little way down the road so we headed that way to check it out. There on the hill not far from the road was the big horn ewe and lamb. Since they were much closer we were able to get a lot of good pics. It was amazing to see this little lamb scurry around on the rocks and cliffs at the ripe old age of two days.
It was getting late so we decided to head back to our hotel in West Yellowstone. On the way we spotted two black bears in different areas. The first black bear was indeed black, above, but the second was a cinnamon black bear. Black bear is a species and can come in a variety of colors, although black is the most common.

Thursday was our last day in the park. We were already quite happy with all of the great wildlife that we had seen and the photo opportunities that we had. So we decided for the finally day we would go all the way around the park, except the road between Tower and Canyon which was still closed due to snow, and just see whatever we would find. On the south loop near the Lake Area turn off a large bird flew across the road and perched in a tree close by. It turned out to be a Swanson's hawk that was cooperative and let us stop to take some pictures.

Then we headed up top the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone to take some scenery shots. This shot was taken from Artist Point and the falls in the distance are the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. We do not spend much time in this area because I am afraid of heights. Since places like this bother me we just took the shot and got going as quick as possible.
Next stop was Mammoth where we were surprised and pleased to find that one of the local elk females had calved the day before. A small heard of elk live in Mammoth and the surrounding area. Since the main predators of elk are wolves and grizzly it is smart to stay in a place that has a lot of people to keep the predators away. However the elk themselves can be dangerous to people in Mammoth that get too close. The ranger, who was keeping spectators from getting to close to the elk and calf, told us that she had chased a park employee who unknowingly had gotten too close to the calf.
Bull elk usually are found alone or in small groups at this time of the year. A healthy buck like this does not have too much to fear from the predators so they usually wonder about more in the highland areas on the north side of the park. During the fall each bull will be surrounded by a harem of females in hopes that he will find one that is receptive to mating. Shortly after we took this picture it began to snow again. It was not bad on the north end but as we passed Mammoth and headed towards Norris the snow on the roads began to get deeper and driving more treacherous. I am used to driving in the snow but roads here in Minnesota get plowed and sanded. They are also wider and do not have steep drop offs or rivers on the side. We were worried that we might have to park and sleep in the car. Fortunately things got better after Norris and we were able to make it out to West Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Part 1

Since Yellowstone is such a big place, and since we ended up taking many pictures over vacation I have decided to post pics from the vacation primarily in three posts. This first post will cover the first couple of days. We did most of our driving to the park on Friday. Thirteen hours of driving got us to Billing, MT where we stayed the night. Saturday we got up and drove the last three hours to the park. We were not in too much of a hurry because of the gray rainy skies. The weather forecast had rain every day for the entire week and my mood was as gloomy as the skies. I had a bad feeling that this vacation was going to end up as a train wreck. Looking back I was kind of right but not in the way in which I was thinking
We arrived at the north entrance of the park around 10:00am and headed right out towards the Lamar Valley. As we came to the bridge into the Little America area there were many cars parked on the side of the road so we stopped to see what everyone was looking at. Down the slope near the river a black bear was munching on the grass. I took a few pictures and then heard someone mention that there were male big horn sheep a bit further down the road.
Since we think that big horned sheep rams are more interesting then a black bear trimming the lawn, that is probably because we have a good population of black bear in Minnesota and absolutely no wild big horned sheep, I ran back to the car and we moved down the road. We found about a dozen or so rams with a few female and young ones mixed in. We have seen big horn rams in the park before but never so many in one group. We watched and photographed their behavior, including some head butting, for a while and then decided to continue on, since we still had not been to our motel yet.
On our way back around the park, the road between Canyon and Tower does not open up until Memorial Day weekend or later because of all the snow in the mount Washburn pass, we spotted a wolf running parallel to the road between Mammoth and Norris. I pulled over grabbed the camera jumped out of the car and began to follow and photograph the wolf. About two miles later the wolf met up with another wolf, I found out that the other wolf had been a couple of hundred feet ahead of the one that I was following, and the two shortly disappeared into the trees. Fortunately for me Michelle picked me up with the car because I was not looking forward to running another couple of miles to get back. With all of that running after the wolves I slept pretty soundly that night.
We started out back into the park early the next morning. The skies had cleared as the day progressed on Saturday and the nice weather continued on Sunday morning. I had talked with several photographers on Saturday and found that many people had been seeing grizzly over by Yellowstone Lake so we headed over through Canyon on our way to Fishing Bridge. On our way we found another jam up of cars so we decided to stop and find out what was going on. It was another bear, but this time it was a grizzly and it was eating at a carcass. I made my way through the trees and snow to where I could photograph the bear from across the river. I found out later that the bear had been eating on the carcass for days, though I am not sure that the bear killed the bison or whether it had just found a convenient meal. We continued to check the carcass for the rest of the trip but I guess that there was not enough meat left to entice another bear.
At Yellowstone Lake we did find another grizzly but it was kind of far away and sleeping so after waiting a bit we decided to continue south on the loop and hook around to Old faithful. We usually do not see that much on the south end of the park, this could be because it is a bit higher elevation, but as we turned the corner and began going north again we were treated to an osprey perched on a tree over looking the Firehole River.
After the osprey took off in the opposite direction in search of a fish we continued north. When we got to Mammoth I decided to check out the North Entrance before heading back out towards Tower and Lamar Valley. I was primarily looking for golden eagle, since we did see them nest in the area a few years back, but the only thing that we found was a female big horned sheep hugging the cliff wall far above the road. I thought that it would be cool to get a picture of the sheep in its natural habitat so we stopped to take a pic and that's when I noticed a small lamb clinging to mom's side. We found out later that the lamb was only hours old when we took this pic.After a few minutes the ewe and her lamb laid down to get some rest and it was very difficult to so the lamb so we decided to move on back into the park. On our way into Mammoth we spotted this mule deer on a hill overlooking the road. Normally I do not spend much time photographing deer but since the sun was on its way down the light was very good. With no place to pull over I jumped out of the car and snapped a couple of quick pics before any cars came up behind us.
With night approaching we decide to start heading back towards West Yellowstone. As we drove between Mammoth and Norris I saw something moving in water near the road and so I stopped. We had seen beaver here in the past, including the day before, but usually they were much further away. This one was munching on a twig pretty close to the road. The only problem was that the setting sun made the lighting tricky.
A little further down the road from the beaver we ran into the same wolf that we had photographed the day before. This time it was heading south towards Norris. Again I grabbed the camera and jumped out of the car. This time the wolf kept to the road, which was unfortunate because people were chasing it down the road in their car. On several occasions people came close to hitting another car or the wolf as they tried to race ahead to catch up to or get a head of the wolf. I kept following on foot for several miles until it was getting dark. Finally Michelle was able to catch up to me with the car and we decided to leave the wolf in peace and head back to our hotel. Even though it had rained on both days we also had periods of blue sky and after only two days I know that my fears about this vacation had been proven wrong, at least as far as the shooting opportunities were concerned.

Yellowstone Black Bear

Just when you thought that the Yellowstone pics were over here come some more. These are pictures of various black bears that we saw during our trip.
Most of these black bears were photographed in the Tower area of Yellowstone near the Calcite Springs overlook.
Black bears are omnivores so they eat both plant and animal matter.
Most of their diet is made up of grass, herbs and berries. Most of the protein in the black bears diet comes from insects, especially insect larva.
Black bears are often seen turning over logs and rocks to search for insects underneath. They will also tear the bark off of trees to get at ant and termite larva living inside the tree or raid beehives to eat both the honey and bee larva inside.
Some times black bears will look for larger prey such as rodents, carrion or even young ungulates, like deer or elf fawn or bison calves.

Yellowstone Rosie and Cubs

One of the highlights of going to Yellowstone each year is Rosie. Rosie is a female black bear that wonders near the Tower area in Yellowstone. We first saw Rosie with a couple of cubs on our first trip through Yellowstone. It was a fall trip and if I remember correctly she was the only bear that we saw on that trip. Since that first trip we have seen Rosie every time that we have visited Yellowstone. She has always been very easy to photograph and has always had cubs or yearlings with her. This spring Rosie had 2 very small cubs.

The mating and reproductive cycle of bears is some what unique. Bears mate in late May of June, not long after they wake up from hibernation. Female go into heat for about a week and leave scent trails to alert potential males. Once they find a potential mate they will spend a few days getting to know each other and then will mate repeatedly over the next several days. The females may mate with more then one male but when mating is over with will have nothing to do with any of them.
During mating the female may become pregnant but that does not necessarily mean that she will be birthing cubs. Bears have an adaptation called delayed pregnancy. The fertilized eggs develops into a blastocyst which floats freely in the females uterus for several months.
In the fall, if the bear is in good condition when it goes into hibernation then the blastocyst will begin to develop and the female will wake up from hibernation in January or February to birth the cubs.
If the female is not in good condition when she goes into hibernation her body will reabsorb the blastocyst and she will not give birth that year.
When they are born, inside the den, the cubs have no fur and are blind. They cling to their mother and really on her to keep them warm and well feed with milk, even though she is in a state of dormancy. By the time the female comes out of hibernation the cubs are about 10 times as large as they were when they were born, are covered with fur and are ready for life outside the den. The cubs will stay with their mother for about 17 months and will hibernate with her during their first winter.
When the female goes into heat again the following May or June she will chase the yearlings away and then find another male to mate with. Males who come across a female with cubs, especially around mating season, will often try and kill the cubs to force the female to go into estrus. The female will typically chase her cubs up a tree for safety while she attempts to deal with the trespassing male. This year, after we left the park, I read that the Rosie was seen slightly limping and that the black cub was no longer with her. It is surmised, though no one knows for certain, that a male may have attacked, killed the black cub and slightly injured Rosie. This is very sad, especially since Rosie is in her late teens and may not have many years left to have cubs. Rosie and the cinnamon cub are still doing fine though so hopefully when we return next spring we will be able to photograph them again.