Latest bear antic!

I wouldn't have known the bear was even around if I hadn't discovered a heavy gas pump had been turned over. Only a human or bear could have done it, and I'm positive no person did it. Here is how it normally looks.

 

And here's how I found it today. It was hard for me to drag the pump back to where it belonged.

Got to the oasis this afternoon to get ready to water tomorrow. Always a killer. I had a helper planned, but he had a family emergency, so I'm on my own. I should be fine. I'll do what I can in the morning, then take a nap, and finish up in the afternoon like I always do. Maybe I'll see some good birds while I'm at it. Here are a couple of photos I snapped this afternoon.

Juvenile male Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Juvenile male Rufous Hummingbird

Google informed me that in the process of maintenance my videos will be removed from my blog in 30 days, but I can add them in again. That means going through 2779 posts and figuring out which videos go where. Don't have it in me to do that. Nothing is forever!

Caught in the act!

In my previous post, I explained that I had spent the night at the oasis on the 10th, and found fresh bear scat early the morning of the 11th. Well, today (the 16th) I eagerly went to check my trail cam to see what birds I had missed in the 5 days since I'd been there, only to find the cam had been torn down. Didn't take much detective work to find out who the cuprit was. Since it happened on the 12th, after I had gone back to town, there were very few video clips of birds on the camera. No new scat, so I'm hoping the bear moved on and it won't happen again.

I could never understand why bears don't pull down the hummingbird feeders. All I can think of is they know it'll spill sugar water all over them, which will attract bees and ants to them. Bears are smart. Years ago, when I first started putting up feeders, they pulled them down.

A recent visitor to the oasis, Jeremy Kuhn, took this nice photo yesterday. In spite of how it looks, the trees need watering. I just didn't have it in me to do it today. First time ever that I was down there when things needed watering and I left without watering. I guess I always knew that day would come. Hoping for rain!

Birds, snakes, and a bear!

Photo by Russ Rogers

The oasis has had its fair share of rain lately, and seems to me like a snake-infested jungle. Only slight exaggeration. I wore my gaiters while watering this morning. Can't be too careful.

Case in point, a birder, Sephen Falick, took this photo a couple of days ago at the oasis. (Diamondback and Curve-billed Thrasher.)

Migration is in full swing, so I've been enjoying taking pictures, especially now that I've finally learned how to use my Nikon Coolpix. My one-inch sensor Sony broke, and my half-inch sensor Nikon has been a pain to me, but I can mostly take decent photos with it, at last. Here are a few of my most recent ones.

Swainson's Thrush, Alpine

Rufous Hummingbird, Alpine

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, CMO

Calliope Hummingbird, CMO

Northern Waterthrush, CMO

I spent the night at the oasis last night. At daylight, when I went to start my day's work, I saw fresh bear scat that wasn't there yesterday. The good news is that there's no bird seed in it. My feeders truly are bearproof.

The bad news is that the bear wrecked a lovely big Alligator Juniper tree. When I get a helper, I'm going to prune it heavily and maybe a bear won't find it so appealing. A third of the tree has been broken off at the top, besides many broken or bent limbs.