Bear on the Deck

We live in the mountains of Colorado, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We enjoy the solitude and being surrounded by wildlife.

Elk, deer, badgers, moose and birds of all types are regularly in the area. We also have a large cinnamon colored black bear that roams the area and for the most part leaves us alone as do we him. You'll see him moving around the neighborhood, but always at a distance.

We have a new bear this year however who is a youngster and is most curious about all things people related and is becoming a pest. It climbs trees in the yards  and stays there for hours looking in the windows, plays in the bird bath and has no fear of people.

The other morning I'm drinking my cup of coffee and I see this young bear strolling across our deck. He is sniffing everything and checking all corners of the deck.

Our barking dog drove him off. He was back again this morning...

We made a gate to close off the deck and will see if that keeps him away. If not, some kind of spike strip on the top of the gate may be required.

Interesting fur color

He has had free access to the deck  coming up the stairway

We just completed a gate to try and keep him out. Not sure if he will just climb up and over.

I built it to be strong enough to withstand a bear climbing over the top. We'll see...

Birds and Deer

We've found the birds and deer have an interesting relationship here on the mountain.  We fill the bird feeder on the rear deck with a typical mix of bird food. This consists of sunflower seeds, nuts and bits of fruit.

The Stellar's Jays will knock the sunflower seeds aside and to the ground below to get at the nuts and bits of fruit.  The deer have figured out  they can forage on the large stash of spilled sunflower seed and frequent the area under the deck for their evening snack.

The deer have no fear of our watching them so it makes for fun nature watching...

Somehow the word gets out and the herd then arives

The Finches  have discovered the bird seed and show up in groups of a hundred or so and consume everything. Pretty interesting to watch.

We keep the seed in the galvanized pail to make it easy to refill the feeder