MTB Wildlife Sightings

[playoutside]

... We paused for a moment to get a glimps of the cub when mama made her presence know again by bolting back up from down the hill and leaping onto the tree trunk abouty 5 feet. She was panting heavy and giving us the eye so we rolled. We were about 40 feet from eachother for what seemed like a solid minute. One of my most intimate sightings of a bear, and although I ussually see at least one a year, this one was great. I got to really study her. She was big, black, and beautiful.

Last year we had a mama and her cub visit our back yard pretty often (neighbors trash was in a shed they knew about). One day the cub got treed by some noise that spooked him and mama stuck around. Then other human noises sent mom up the tree -- amazing how agile she was and pretty quiet in her climb. The cub fell asleep in the tree and I think mama got bored. She climbed down and started to wander thru neighbors yards towards the woods. Something made her concerned before she made it to the woods. She came charging back across yards, making that aggressive panting noise and leaped right up the tree!! It took her no time to cover several hundred yards and get up that tree -- made me really understand you cannot run from a bear! They are really beautiful and nurturing. She had to wake the cub up and coax him down the tree. I love watching them; hate being startled by them when I leave for work in the morning and they just appear out of nowhere. Below is a picture of mama that day. The baby was higher and I never got a good picture of both in the tree.
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[JD]

Awesome photo. They are very cool animals. My folks had one coming around their house in Jersey this year. In some parts of Jersey they are getting really used to humans, much like the deer down there. It's rare to see deer up here, back in Jersey I would see 20-30 every night driving home.

 

[bvibert]

I saw 2 or 3 deer on the side of the trail at White Memorial. They ran off as soon as they heard me coming...

I've also seen a few beavers swimming in ponds or streams while at WM.

 

[mlctvt]

On our road ride yesterday in Greenfield MA my wife and I saw a black bear. I'd say about a 250 lb bear. He ran across the road about 150 feet in front of us. Just like the last time we saw a bear, my wife brakes while I accelerate so I can get a better look. I couldn't believe it because it was so hot yesterday.

Then in the car on the way home we saw a pair of large Pileated woodpeckers.

 

[Greg]

Saw a big slug on Saturday...

 

[kingdom-tele]

saw a beautiful auburn 6 point buck saturday somewhere in burke, I was 30 min into a climb and I spooked him, he was 20 ft from me, it was humbling how quickly he darted uphill