Category Archives: The Backyard Biologist

CELEBRATING THE HEARTBEAT AROUND US

The Backyard Naturalist. by Craig Tufts, National Wildlife Federation

The Backyard Naturalist by Craig Tufts, National Wildlife Federation. With information on making a place for wildlife, feeding birds, making other visitors welcome, wooing wildlife with water, flowers, and shelter, and more.

The Backyard Biologist

There’s A Baar In Them Thar Woods…

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O.K. – You Have My Attention!

My good friend has a cabin in the woods, and if I’m real lucky, I get to spend a few days there each year.

The building is solid and stout, constructed with magnificent unpeeled logs and positioned perfectly beside an idyllic stream of impossibly clear waters. Above all, it’s quiet and protected and far from the screeching of traffic and cell phones and all of the normal worries.

One night by the campfire in this place can do wonders for the maintainance of one’s sanity and eternal soul. It’s a comfort just to be there, and a place not so easy to leave, or forget.

Birds and small creatures flit and scurry through the aspen leaves and fallen evergreen needles. Elk and mule deer come to parlay on a regular basis, and my friend and his young boy once had a much too close encounter with a mountain lion with questionable intent. The bears like the neighborhood just fine too, and they always seem to pay it a visit once they wake from their winter’s hibernation and begin their first travels.

You might say that these visits have become an annual ritual for man and bear alike, and it’s nice to know that the lumbering beasts are happy to take the time to drop on by and say hello. They seem to love to leave a calling card as well, in ever more creative ways.

Well, as you can see from the picture, you could call this a calling card all right! And no, it’s not left behind by a rider and horse or a remnant grizzly either and we did not make use of special photographic effects. It’s simply a full and natural deposit from just one big old glorious Colorado Black Bear, and I found it a few short yards from the main entrance door.

I’ve come across a lot of bear sign in my wanderings in the west and I can safely surmise that this must have come from one not so ordinary bruin. I’ve seen quite a few black bears too, and some big bears among them. But I don’t think I’ve ever run across anything close to the Colorado record of 700 plus pounds. That is until now.

Of course I will never know how big this bear could be, and any attempt to speculate would be just that. But it does give a thrill to wonder.

Regardless of its size and weight, the mere sight of what this animal left behind is more than enough to make a careful individual pause in mid heartbeat, and pause again. I can easily imagine that big ol’ boy watching from the shadows of the overhanging boughs of spruce and fir and enjoying a great big belly laugh at our expense.

I chuckle to myself when I think about that, albeit a little nervously. If he wanted to gain my full attention it was an entirely effective act.

It also makes one take a good look around with the flashlight before venturing out at night to take care of your own reluctant business.

All I can say to Mr. Bear from my current seat in the more mundane world is “Welcome Back Sir” and “Thanks for the Memories”. Your presence in the outer corners of my consciousness is a reality I won’t soon forget. I feel extremely small, yet part of something so big too, at the same time. And that is the gift of the bears.

I think of you compadre, and hope to see you soon…but then again, perhaps not.

Some acquaintances are better left undisturbed, and in my way of thinking, you are just fine wherever you are.

 

Black Bear Picnic Raid. Painting by Walter Weber.

 

Food Freedom, and Guns Too.

Michael Patrick McCarty

P.S. The size 11 tennis shoe belongs to me – better for running, you know!

 

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The Backyard Biologist

The Wild Garden

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The Monarchs of Spring

 

“Nature ——wild Nature——dwells in gardens just as she dwells in the tangled woods, in the deeps of the sea, and on the heights of the mountains; and the wilder the garden, the more you will see of her there.  If you would see here unspoiled and in many forms, let your garden be a wild place, a place of trees like giant tree spade and shrubs and vines and grass, even a place where weeds are granted a certain tolerance; for gardens that are merely pick and span plots of combed and curried flower-beds have little attraction for the birds or for the other people of the wild. Yet, into any garden, no matter how artificial or how tame, some wild things will find their way. It is a shallow boast, this talk we hear about man’s conquest of nature. It will be time to talk in that fashion when man has learned to check or control the march of the seasons or when he has brought some spot of earth so thoroughly under his dominion that it remains insensible to the impulse of the spring. He has not done that yet, and he never will. Spring in a garden is as irresistible, as incredible, as a spring in the heart  of the wilderness”.

From Adventures In Green Places by Herbert Ravenel Sass

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Michael Patrick McCarty

The Backyard Biologist

Bees, Bees, and More Bees…And Honey Too!

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Today our new-found friend, Justin the beekeeper, finished installing some bee hives and electric fencing on a small corner of our lower pasture. It was an exciting time for us, and the bees. Our dogs were enthusiastic also, as they tried to figure out what all the hubbub was about. I know that they will be even more stimulated when they lay their inquisitive noses on the woven wire for that first, and hopefully last time, and receive that startling jolt from that fully charged car battery attached to the fence.

Hopefully, they will forgive us for that. If we could, we would tell them that the electric shock is really not for them. The fence is there to fend off the sweet desires of a wandering black bear. As we all know, they love bees and honey too, and tend to be a bit rough on hives.

Justin is a fairly new beekeeper, but he already knows a great deal about his craft. We know nothing about bees or beekeeping, so we learned a few things recently from him and some preliminary research. I think that I knew this and forgot, but honey bees are not native to North America at all. They were imported from Europe in the early 17th century and quickly disseminated throughout the country.

Justin installed eight hives, which for now hold about 5,000 bees per hive. I don’t know about you, but 40,000 bees is a lot of bees in our book. He tells me that the hives will contain about 10,000 bees per hive when they finish doing that “birds and the bees” thing. Go bees!

Apparently, there are many kinds of honey bees. Our bees are about one half Carniolan, or “carnies”, and the other half Italian honey bees. Both types are considered to be excellent honey producers, and resistant to disease. Both are also considered to be non agressive and gentle in their behavior towards the beekeeper. This seems like it might be a great characteristic, particularly if I were the keeper!

Justin tells us that at top production he might be able to harvest about 40 pounds of honey per hive, or about 320 pounds in a good season. That’s impressive. We traded him a little bit of future honey in return for keeping his bees on our land, which I believe will be a great arrangement for all concerned.

It’s a small corner of our property, after all, and we will not miss it. Our small apple orchard sits just above the hives, so the bees will no doubt help with improved pollination, and increased fruit yields and quality. Honey bees are the most important pollinator of apples, and vital to the health and vitality of an orchard.

So, there you have it. Hopefully, the bees will remain active, healthy and happy. We will have the tasty pleasure of homegrown and backyard honey, which will help us to do the same. And, we feel just a little more grounded to the earth, and more open to receive the willing bounty of the land. We welcome the small ones to our growing farm community, and we are grateful for a new friend.  A bit of cooperative collaboration, like bees in a bee colony, can go a long way. A little honest barter, can’t hurt anyone either.

Perhaps you have a beekeeper near you who might be interested in a similar arrangement, and you can make a new friend or two along the way too.

Food Freedom!