Dan’s Web Spot

After returning from several days in Jacksonville, FL, where the temperature was in the mid-90s and very muggy, I welcomed the return to NH weather. Once I got home, I unpacked my bag, put everything away, and then proceeded to open up some windows to air out the house.

Bird Feeder

When Samai, Elijah and Rahim showed up (I was VERY happy to see them), we had a little greeting fest, and then the boys went up to Elijah's room. While I was by the sliding screen door near the back deck, I heard the familiar sound of the metal squirrel baffle on the bird feeder in the back yard.

My first thought was BEAR, having observed a bird feeder crime scene several years ago. It was dark out, so I turned on the back deck light, but it wasn't bright enough to see beyond the deck in the rain. I searched frantically for a flashlight and found a little one that was better than nothing.

Carefully sliding the screen door open, I peered over the deck railing to confirm my initial thought: BEAR. It was a black bear, the likes of which I hadn't seen for a long time in my back yard. » More...

So I was wondering why all of a sudden I had to refill my new bird feeder on a daily basis. Initially, a refill would last some 4-5 days. Then the squirrels found out about it and the refill frequency dwindled to 2-3 days.

Lately the feeder has been empty each morning. Last night, I happened to flip on the back deck light and peer outside before retiring to bed and noticed a couple of visitors under the bird feeder... rather large visitors, I might add. There were 2 absolutely beautiful does helping themselves to whatever they could, both in and out of the feeder.

At last the mystery is solved, and as far as I can tell, there at least has not been a visit from a bear yet. How do I know? I'm only guessing this because the feeder is still intact and hanging off of the deck.

A few years ago, I lost a bird feeder to a bear. I found the feeder quite damaged, removed from its hanger, dragged some 50 feet over a rock wall in my back yard, and urinated on. There were plenty of bear tracks from the original location to the final resting place of that old feeder. In fact, this story was recently refreshed in my head when I took a load of scrap metal objects to the dump about 4 days ago. One of those objects was that old feeder...