Bear w/ 2 cubs

Name: Kathy Reiser
Where: Chadwick Road
When: Jul 17, 2003 05:00 am

While I was sitting on the stone fence along Chadwick Road, doing the 10-minute watch/listen period at the beginning of the Cornell Lab bird census, a bear showed up! She suddenly just was there, about 75-100 feet from me, in the woods. Two seconds later, as I was looking at her through my binoculars, I realized that she had two cubs with her! Oh, oh. Of course I'd been told for years to be careful around a mother bear with cubs, so I was not happy to see them. But I was also not happy at the thought of interrupting my bird census by departing. So I just sat tight. But then I realized that it was possible the mama would get closer to me, suddenly see me and do something rash. So I decided to let her know I was there, and clapped my hands. She saw me, and backed off into the woods. So I went back to my census and started to play my recordings. Then I heard the two cubs, doubtless disturbed by my noise, climbing a tree. I could hear their claws scratching the bark as they ascended, even though I couldn't see them. That should have been my cue to leave, but stubbornly I stayed put to finish my work, although loud noises like clapping hands do not exactly encourage bird attendance either. Well, I was about halfway through my census when mama bear showed up again! This time I clapped and yelled at her but she didn't budge. At this I lost my nerve and departed, going up the road to my 2d and 3rd census sites. As I did so I belatedly realized that of course mama bear was not going to go away as long as her cubs were treed. She was just returning to see if the coast was clear and she could retrieve them. I don't know what she would have done if I'd stayed, but I wasn't about to find out. So I went on with the other two censuses and two hours later returned to the first spot and completed my census there. Of course the bears were long gone by then. But let me tell you, for a while after I left the bears, every dark stump and tree trunk looked like a bear to me! I learned a lesson, fortunately painlessly: not to linger around a mama bear with cubs for any reason. And I learned something about bear behavior too. On balance, even though this one was peaceable I'd rather learn about bears second-hand.