Claude the Bear
We can tell here in north central Connecticut that we are coming up on spring because it’s time to take the bird feeders down. If we don’t do it, someone else will. In this case, it’s our latest neighborhood denizen, a circa-325-pound, male black bear that, for obvious reasons, we are calling Claude. With warming temperatures of late before the latest chill we figured the bears would be back. They have become increasingly common visitors to our yard and to our area since we first started taking notice of them 15 years ago. Far from encouraging them, we do everything we can to avoid tempting them, which is why we keep our garbage pail stored in the garage until we put it out at the last minute. I had a premonition of things to come Monday morning when I found the pail up top by the street on its side and partially emptied. The wind had been howling, and it’s possible a gust blew it over. But now I’m pretty sure it was the work of our newest incarnation of “Ursus americanus.” We had already taken to bringing in the bird feeder at night; its location just outside our kitchen,...Read more