I learn a lot from watching my cats; their instincts and senses are so sharp. I've often seen my cats go on alert when they're in the yard or at the window and when I check out what they're looking at it's usually some critter they would like to stalk or hunt. Occasionally it's the neighbor's friendly dog coming to visit.
This evening I saw my cat Sparta tense up when looking out the window into the field in front of my house. There was a good-sized black bear moving steadily up the driveway and then through the hedgerow and over the hill. They are relatively unusual for this area.
Sparta stayed vigilant for about 15 minutes, watching where it had disappeared. If it hadn't been for her, I would have missed this beautiful sight.
Cool! We have bears here. I've seen them in the yard and I've had them inside the fenced yard which makes me unhappy, but not much I can do about it. Trash can now lives in the kitchen, hummingbird food comes in at night, feral cat food dish comes in right as soon as Smoke's finished eating...
Somewhere online years ago I saw a pic of an orange cat that had treed a bear, protecting the property! A "guard cat".
Loved that photo. One brave cat. First you see the bear then you scroll all the way down the tree trunk and there's the little orange cat, standing guard.
I've been lucky enough to see bears when hiking in the nearby Catskill Mountains, but never in my neighborhood. I know in parts of New Jersey bears are a daily event. People should just leave them alone.
Wow, I don't know what I would have thought if a black bear had been that close to me. Don't know what Celia would have thought either! Is there any construction going on in your area that would have brought the bear out Greenport ferals? We had a black bear in downtown Roanoke a couple of weeks ago, just hanging out in a tree. They managed to tranquilize and rehome it. My sister-in-law, who grew up about 10 miles to the west of where I grew up in NJ once had a brown bear on her back porch. 8O
eldercat, thanks for posting that pic. I'm going to share that with all the cat people I know.
Spirite, I know you were from the Saratoga area, so you know the region I live in. Hudson is only about 25 miles west of the Berkshires, which has lots of bears. This is probably a young male that is out finding a territory for himself. Some friends who live two miles from me reported their bird feeders trashed the other day, so he's still around. It's a very rural area - farms, woods and fields - but not a good place for a bear, since there are more roads than in the Berkshires.
I remember the time I took Robin for a walk in the park-on the same Sunday a young black bear was having HIS romp!
I had Robin on a leash and harness. When we got to the street, I carried him across, then we both entered the park.
Suddenly Robin stiffened, and POW! He started running, motioning me to follow.
It turns out, there was a BIG, playful black bear in the park. He eventually went home . 1st time out in the big world...
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