Wild about wild animals

The people of the world seem to be going wild with various ideologies that are harmful to others, and I need a break from writing about these foibles.  So, why not write about wild animals I’ve encountered?

My first close encounter with a wild animal that I remember was on a Boy Scout camping trip.  I don’t remember if I was a junior or an adult leader at the time.  I was sharing a tent with one of the scouts when we heard scurry along a bottom edge of our tent.  I got out a flashlight and we saw a mouse running around.

Without thinking, I grabbed the mouse and stuck it in my shirt pocket; the shirt was on a hanger on a rope at the top of the tent.  Then I started worrying that the mouse might gnaw a hole in my shirt, but I did nothing.

In the morning, I found my shirt pocket intact, but with the mouse dead inside.  I don’t think I injured it when I captured it; I think it died of fright.  I felt sad, but I felt it was a territorial dispute.

A much later animal intrusion ended more happily.  A bat went down the chimney at our cabin and rustled all night trying to get out.  Lucky bat, it was not cool or cold weather when we would have had a fire below.  I managed to get it out with chimney cleaning rods and duct tape.  I gave the rods a couple of taps on the roof and the bat went gliding off.

I’ve encountered bears many times, and my first Reader submission was a compilation of bear stories.  Black bears are more likely to turn and run when encountering humans, but don’t count on it.  My latest encounter was a bear in our cabin yard.  I stepped outside to take its picture, but I made the mistake of clicking my tongue to catch its attention.  I got its attention, but it chose to run the other way from that eight-foot tall animal standing to the top step.

We’ve seen moose tracks around our cabin, but these have all but disappeared as the trees have grown bigger.  A DNR forester told us that if we want moose we should clear cut.  The moose like to munch on young aspen.  Maybe we’ll have more moose as our recent clear cut fills in.

The most moose I’ve seen was on the Kawishiwi River in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  My son and I must have seen fourteen moose in one day.  We were at least three canoe lengths from one grazing the water plants.  I wonder if I’ll ever find those pictures in my jumbled archives.

Among the most skittish animals are woodpeckers.  Even if they are twenty feet up in a tree, they often will fly away.  I did manage once to get some pictures of a pileated woodpecker a lot closer than that.  Within a block of our house one was battering away, and I took several pictures almost level with it.

I did sneak up on a sapsucker drumming on the aluminum vent stack of our outhouse.  I guess it was so lovelorn that it didn’t notice me sneaking up on it to within eight feet.

Probably the least shy animals are wild turkeys.  Or is it most dumb?  A few years ago I saw one strutting around on the shoulder of Hwy. 44.  I stopped and took several pictures of it.  It would walk toward me and then back off.  I almost thought it was a domestic turkey.

But this past weekend I missed a flock of turkeys.  I saw a single turkey on the opposite side of the road.  I decided not to stop.  Then I looked to my right and saw about a dozen turkeys on my side.  Thank goodness they were on the shoulder and not on the pavement.  I slowed down but didn’t stop.  I was too tired from cutting up firewood.

One animal that I had to stop for was a huge snapping turtle.  Its shell must have been two feet or more front to back.  I stopped and took several pictures as it made its slow way across the road.  I doubt that anybody would have hit it; the damage to their car would have been considerable.

I do wish that I had stopped for another turtle crossing the road.  I was staying with my sister-in-law in a small town while I attended a conference several miles away.  As I drove to the conference I saw a turtle crossing the road.  I thought of stopping and carrying it across but didn’t.  When I came back in the evening, there was a broken shell only a quarter way across the road.

Another amphibian that fared better was a green toad that got caught in our rain gauge.  I tried shaking it out, but its sticky feet held tight.  I laid the gauge down on the ground, but it still didn’t leave its “shelter”.  I stomped or banged the ground behind it, and it darted out so fast that I almost couldn’t see it.

Deer are both curious and skittish.  I have taken pictures of them as little as thirty feet away looking right at me.  Other times I only have to wave a hand while I’m in the cabin and they will bolt.

I rarely see wolves, but we hear them or see their kills.  We came across a deer carcass on one of our trails. The next time we passed the spot, the carcass was almost gone except for an organ and some hair.

I did get a great “video” of a wolf howl.  You can listen to it on YouTube; look for “Wolves Howling in Brimson”.

You can also find some of my animal photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/28887068@N00.

Some year Mel will be organized and find all of his notes and pictures.

This version has a few corrections from the original article at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/08/5095_wild_about_wild_animals.

Bear with me as I am mad and sad

I went to our cabin last Thursday intending to stay through Sunday, trying to catch up on all kinds of undone tasks, including lots of un-mowed trails.  Although thunderstorms were predicted, I followed my old habits of weather prediction interpretation.  If good weather is predicted for the day, then the weather will be good.  If bad weather is predicted, then the weather may not be as bad as predicted.

My assumptions proved warranted.  I had gray weather but very little rain.  The grass was too wet to mow mostly because of dew, but I did set to on many other tasks.

No, I don’t make our cabin a sweat farm as a DNR forester warned us years ago.  My preferred rhythm is an hour of some wood cutting, brush clearing, or whatever and then an hour of reading, playing SuDoKu, or browsing the web.

My wife didn’t join me partly because she wasn’t so optimistic about the weather and partly because she had a long list of activities she wanted to do in Duluth.  Also we did have a guest but we often let the guest take care of himself.

Well, it was a good thing my wife stayed behind.  The guest managed to clog the toilet and left for his planned activity.  My wife tried the hot water treatment, the plunger treatment, and the snake treatment.  Nothing worked to unblock the toilet.

When she called me to report this, I decided I should come back to Duluth to help her.  One hour later I was home.

I tried the snake and could not get it in as far as I knew it should go.  Then I pushed the snake while my wife turned the handle.  Success!  We cleared it!

My feeling that I had to come back to Duluth was my first “mad” of the day.

I headed back to Brimson.  I declined making coffee at home and opted to get some at Bixby’s.  I had to wait a bit, chatted with the barista, and was on my way.

As had been true most of the last part of the week, Duluth was foggy, but from Glenwood and north it was clear.  I turned off Jean Duluth Road and proceeded east on Hwy 44.  I passed the marsh and drove among the trees where it was darker.

Then a black shape came from the right.  It was a black bear that walked right into my car which slammed into its head.  I stopped as quickly as I could.  Looking behind me, I saw the bear lying of the side of the road, its head over the solid white line.

I called 911 with a non-emergency call.  I reported the incident and was transferred to the state highway patrol.  The state dispatcher said the DNR would be notified.

Several people stopped to ask if I was OK.  I said I was fine and that authorities had been be notified.  Some said the bear was still alive and that I should stay away from it.  One man said he could get his gun and shoot the bear.

Finally I inspected the damage.  There was a small triangular break in the front bumper and a piece of trim was hanging down to the road on one side.  Later I found that the wheel well plastic was loose and the right side of the bumper was loose.

I walked back to the bear, probably about two hundred pounds and three to four years old.  It was breathing with great quick heaves.

I walked back to my car and picked up lots of pieces of auto debris.  These can’t all be mine!  Many were in shapes I didn’t recognize.  There must have been previous crashes here.

A sheriff’s deputy pulled up by the bear and I walked back.  He checked my auto license on his computer and asked for other details.  He gave me a case number for insurance purposes.

I walked back to my car and got out some tools to get the hanging trim off.  While I was doing this, I heard “crack”.  The deputy shot the bear.

This was both a mad and sad event.  I was mad that it had even occurred and I was sad for the bear.

Finally, I called my insurance company while all the details were fresh in my memory.

As I drove off, I got mad again.  The sun was out and I had missed some good working and loafing time at the cabin.

Sunday the prediction for Brimson was more thunderstorms.  Fortunately, that didn’t deter my wife from joining me.  The weather was a mix of clear and cloudy with only a brief bit of pitter-patter when I was reading in the screen tent.  I got lots of grass mowed and she picked rhubarb for next week’s Rhubarb Festival.

On the way back I noticed how dark the area of the incident was compared to the marsh area to the west.

I also had another mad.  Three drivers behind me didn’t want to go the speed limit and were bunched up behind me, the first car being three or four car-lengths behind me.  If this same group had been behind me when I had stopped for the bear, I would have had rear-end damage as well as front-end damage.

Mel's first Reader article was "Bear Stories", published in the September 30, 1999 Northland Reader..

The current article was also published in the Reader Weekly, June 26, 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/06/26/3622_bear_with_me_as_i_am_mad_and_sad.

My camera is bare of bear!

I was sitting in our cabin this afternoon when a dark moving shape caught my eye.

It was a small black bear, probably a two or three-year-old.  It sniffed at our fire pit and stuck its snout in the pail of water we keep nearby..

I grabbed my camera and stepped outside.  I made the mistake of making a clucking sound to attract its attention.  I did get its attention and when it saw that eight-foot tall strange critter, it galloped off before I could even frame the picture.

“Eight-foot tall critter”?  A five-foot-nine guy standing on a two-and-a-half foot stoop can look very imposing to an animal who might never have seen a human being.