Another visitor: Winnie-the-Pooh
Yesterday The Visitor returned for tea, uninvited. Lumbering across the lawn, he (or she) found a comfy spot and settled down onto the mossy grass and laurel hedge cuttings. Stretched out like a bear rug, he lay there panting, only looking up to see what the passing cars or people were on about. I agreed, it was a hot afternoon.
And so he lounged there awhile, would find a different spot every so often, roll over and roll back. Sometimes he would stretch out until his hind legs were straight and his front legs casually bent in front of him, supporting a sleepy head. “I’m so full… so sleepy.” One could say, I suppose, that he was having a siesta.
Eventually it was time for the evening meal, so The Visitor made his slow and thoughtful way over to the plum tree, where he enjoyed easy pickings of the dropped fruit and the remainder of those still on the tree. If he couldn’t reach from his sitting position, no matter, he could stand and reach. After all, he had already pulled down several large branches to access the higher fruits.
Having enjoyed the feast to his heart’s content, he bade goodbye and wandered off to the neighbour’s, looking both ways to cross the street… but he had already eaten their pears, so he didn’t stay long and ventured to the place next door to them. And that was the last I saw of him. The End.
We salvaged the last of the plums to be sure he wouldn’t come back… til next year. The last photo above is a still from one of many videos I took of the black bear. To monitor where he was headed, I had also rigged up an iSight camera to my MacBookPro (which, as Mac geeks will know, has a built-in one already) and perched it on the back of a chair, aimed at the yard. I recorded about 2 hours of video into iMovie and thank goodness he didn’t stay longer or I’d have run out of hard drive space! In a good 45 minutes of filming after his departure, he seemed to make no appearance, but the time-lapse footage was so cool I kept it anyway. (Anybody know how to speed up the frame rate for a section in iMovie so it’s real time-lapse? Is that even possible?) My mom remarked how much the light was moving while the bear lay virtually still. Ahh, what a lazy, wonderful life. But I can only imagine what hardships brought him down here. If he is the same bear of late, he managed to knock over a compost bin and a garbage can, devour lots of neighbourhood fruit and leave plenty of gifts in our yards. He’s been a busy, hungry bear.
It’s tough being a treehugger, animal lover and food lover all at the same time when I watch a young bear destroying a fruit tree. We’d only picked about half of it so my plum crisp is going to need some apples for support. Anyway, for the bear’s sake I really hope he survives and gets back to his wild domain. He was too preoccupied with lounging and eating to bother with humans, or dogs even, so he hasn’t been a physical threat to anybody; hopefully it stays that way. Do go home, Mr Bear. You’re safer in the forest.