The Bear Who Came To Lunch

6/3/17

My wife and I decided to walk this morning up in the Coast Range out of Falls City, where we live. My rationale was that I still needed to find a Townsend’s Solitare for the year. There is a place where an old logging road parallels Callahan Creek, and we walk here once or twice each year. When we first started over 30 years ago, the Douglas Fir trees planted along side the road were quite small, averaging about our height. Now they are over a foot thick and 40-50 feet tall. It is a nice, quiet walk and at this time of year we can expect to be serenaded by many species of birds.

We have noted in the past there are ant hills containing ant colonies on the side of this road, and occasionally we have found these dug up and torn apart, assumedly by a bear. I have seen bobcats here but had yet to chance upon a bear - until this morning.

Rosie may have seen him first, and asked for my binoculars while I was preoccupied taking pics of a former ant hill, but either he went off to the side of the road or she could not quite recognize him for what he was. A minute later I saw him, but he did not appear quite right. Even after getting the bins on it, I still could not determine what it was. He was at least 250 yards away, and was motionless when I looked at him, so I assumed he was a stump or something. But finally he moved and started moseying along, and then it was clear. I gave Rosie the bins back and started taking pictures.

At 250 yards the pics are not the clearest, but the bear is easily identifiable. He ambled along from one side of the road to another, and finally went off to the right side. Rosie did not really want to go farther, but I, being the adventurous one, wanted better pics. I told her I thought it was a boar (male) as he looked large and there were no cubs. I eventually persuaded her, and we continued down the road. We began forming strategies in case of a worst case scenario. That old phrase came to mind, “Walk softly and carry a big stick,” so we found some branches which would make us look larger than life, and kept going. Along the way we found a few more ant hills which were disturbed.

The closer we got to where he last was, the quieter we became. But, we never saw or heard him, so I suppose that was a relief (for Rosie at least....).

Well, here are my best pics at 250 yards, and also a couple of disturbs ant hills.