Critters
I have an update about the bear. It seems my first instinct was correct. It was a male, about a year old, and designated as a cinnamon bear. He had begun to hang about the cabins, and had removed a few of the panels on the greenhouse. Then he wandered into a trailer and ate some bread. Finally he went down to Zan’s house, and got treed by Zan’s small terrier. Game and Fish arrived, shot him with a tranquilizer dart, and took him off to Colorado where they needed a cinnamon bear in the genetic mix. I was a little sad he was gone, but also glad since he’d begun to not fear humans.
Next critter crises. I have a bird feeding station with a big tube feeder, a finch feeder, birdbath, and a ground feeder for the doves. I also throw out peanuts for the Pinon Jays. Well, the jays told all their friends and relatives and yesterday I had between 30 and 40 jays shrieking, squabbling and stuffing their little birdie beaks. Within two hours they had eaten everything in the tube feeder, the ground feeder and all the peanuts. The poor little finches and grosbeaks looked like characters in a cartoon as the jays would blow past them and leave them tumbling in the air or knock them off the feeder perch.
I called Wild Birds Unlimited to cry the blues and had the woman tell me “be glad it’s only 30 to 40. One of my clients gets a flock of 100.” Her only suggestion was that I not fill the feeders for a few days until the little flying pigs move on. They are beautiful, such an exquisite dusky blue, but oh my god, they are hogs and bullies. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.
Melinda