First of all, we have the robin family, currently residing in a quiet space inside our front porch. The last update I gave you showed that two babies had hatched. This was on May 13 ...
I have been stopping by to get updated photos every two days. So here are the two little robins, and how they grew:
On May 14 ...
On May 16 ...
On May 18 ...
On May 20 (today) ...
Alas, as you may have noticed, there is still some blue in the nest on the photos from the 16th and 18th. It was still there today. It seems that the mother robin will only have two hungry mouths to feed.
On Saturday, my wife and I drove down to Rhinelander, Wis., to get some items needed for our bathroom project--a new bathroom cabinet and some stuff for the new tub--shower curtain, shower, curtain rod, etc. The sliding doors will soon be history.
We got the cabinet in the car by folding the back seat down. Even so, it just barely fit. Next car I get, I think, is going to be a hatchback. We've run into major cargo shortages just too often with my little car. (Besides, I don't have to hide Christmas gifts in the trunk any more.)
I had taken the new camera along, in case we saw some wildlife. Nothing much except on the trip home, about five miles from home, when we saw about a half dozen deer just off the road, feeding on the fresh, new grass. I stopped about 100 yards beyond, but all but one of them ran away. I got two pictures from the front seat, through the rear window, but they were blurry. When I stepped out of the car, the last deer was gone, too. Darn.
But fate smiled on me Sunday.
I was working in the office, trying to get the last of the sports finished--there was lots of it this week--when the phone rang at about noon. A woman was on the line and asked if there was a photographer available: There's a bear in a tree near their home. It was about a quarter mile away, right in town.
I grabbed the office camera, and ran home to get my wife, who was about to take a shower. "Come on," I said. "We're going to see something fun." She quickly got dressed, got into the car, and we made the short trip. As I walked up, a squirrel ran across the grass where a number of people were standing around. "You wanted me to come here to get a picture of a squirrel???"
They laughed and pointed into a scotch pine (I think it was). And there sat in all his glory ...
He was about 30 feet up in the tree. He was looking down at us, and we were looking up at him ...
Someone said they had called the local police department, which told them to call the state Department of Natural Resources. So they did. And the DNR said they wouldn't do anything. Meanwhile, there the bear sat ...
Some of the people said that the bear had apparently hurt his left front paw somehow--he was limping. I figured that once everyone went away, he would climb down and amble away. But then he started getting restless and assumed the climbing pose ...
Down he climbed, the same way he had climbed up earlier. The people said he had been around there for much of the morning ...
I had told everyone to back off and give the bear a wide berth, so he would have an unobstructed escape path. Once he reached the bottom, he paused for a moment or two before running off on three legs ...
For a minute or two, he climbed up into a nearby maple tree. But then he climbed back down and hit the road ...
He ran off down a side street that dead-ends at the edge of a wooded area. We drove there a few minutes later but saw no trace of him.
That's OK. I had my pictures, and the bear (I think) was able to get back to his normal abode. Happy trails, Mr. Bear. And thank you for posing so nicely. Hope your paw gets better.
My wife and I agreed: Quite some eventful weekend.
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