My grandfather served as a game warden in northern Pennsylvania during the 1930s to the 1950s. As a boy, I always enjoyed visiting him, because he had lots of stories to share with me and my brothers. We especially liked his stories about black bears.
One of his bear stories took place when the black bear hunting season was still a month away. He was walking through the woods when he ran across a bear wallow on a flattop ridge. He told me he had often heard of black bear wallows, but he had never seen one before. A big tree had blown down, and when the roots tilted up they had carried with them all the topsoil right down to the clay. This depression had filled with rainwater, and it made a perfect wallow, complete with muddy water. Muddy paths radiated from the wallow like spokes of a wheel in every direction. My grandfather figured that a good many black bears were making use of it. I guess bears have fleas and ticks to contend with, and apparently they use these wallows for the same reason birds take dust baths.
My grandfather said that cubs apparently don't like baths any better than we boys did. So while their mothers were soaking in the water, the black bear cubs amused themselves by climbing the hemlock trees nearby and cutting off the tips of the branches. He said that the ground under several trees was almost completely covered with these hemlock tips. The outer bark of the trees was so worn by the constant climbing up and down that the trees actually appeared a lighter brown than the other trees. I guess there must have been a lot of cubs! Neither my grandfather or I have ever figured out why the cubs wanted to cut off the branches.
Finding a Bear's Den
Speaking of those branches reminds me of my grandfather's story about a hemlock thicket he once came across. He was actually out hunting bobcats when he found it. It was a dense thicket about eight or ten feet high, and he said that the inside was like an empty room. The tops were so thick the snow didn't penetrate them, and a black bear had decided to make it his winter home. He had made a nest that was a masterpiece. The bear had cut off the tips of hemlocks, just as the cubs had, and he had made a perfect oval rug about four or five inches thick. My grandfather said that the the little green hemlock tips were packed close together with the stems down. As a result, the edges were as trim as a braided rug. Grandfather said it was hard for him to believe it could have been made by a black bear. He said it was just another one of nature's wonders!
How to Observe Wildlife
I once asked my grandfather how he was able to see so many wild animals. He said that if you really want to know what goes on in the woods, you need to lie down, put something over your face, and lie still. That's because it's your face that scares animals. Grandfather told me that once, with nothing but some grass tucked under his cap and hanging down over his face, he had observed a number of grouse feeding all around him. Eventually, they all lined up on a log six feet away from him, preening their feathers, and "talking" over the day's events. At one point, they became nervous at that thing they couldn't identify (my grandfather), but he kept perfectly still. So they settled down and resumed their grooming. Another time, my grandfather said that a weasel who was chasing a chipmunk jumped on his shoulder and ran the whole length of his body.
On his website, the author shares more of his grandfather's black bear stories. For tips on stalking black bears, please read his free report on black bear hunting.
Visit : Barbie and the Diamond Castle find more about lasko at lasko review find more save about Gumball Machine and foot massager
No comments:
Post a Comment