New Jersey Baby Boomer

We have had many visit from black bears this summer of 2010, and so have many others in Northern New Jersey and other parts of the State.

This year, there will be a bear hunt. I always have such mixed feelings about the bear hunt. I love animals, all of them, and as you can see from the pictures below, the mom and cubs walking through our yard are so cute.

We also have a young mid-sized bear that frequents the property…in fact our Yorkie, tiny as she is, yapped and chased it off the property and lived to tell…this time.

Every time we take her out, or walk to our cars at night, or walk out the door for that matter, we have to look both ways, and carry her in our arms until we are sure there are no bears. We see them on our property approximately 1-2 times a week, sometimes more.

Usually it’s the mom and cubs. Then there’s the HUGE bear, a gnarly looking old bear, that is the most intimidating bear of all. Our property…right up against the house and past the front door…are part of it’s pathway through the neighborhood. He occasions our trash, but we have things rigged now so that it is so hard for them to get at the trash, they don’t try much anymore. (I may eat those words in a day or two). And the “medium-sized” bear I told you about that my dog chased. These are our “regulars”.

I haven’t felt comfortable walking this summer…not because of the heat, but because of the bears. I never walk out my door completely relaxed, always have to be conscious of whether a bear is going to come around the side of the house…and believe me it happens.

Have we been attacked? No, not yet, but I’ve seen a threatening snort or two, especially from the Mom of the cubs…a Mom protecting her cubs is probably the most dangerous if you get near the cubs, or between her and the cubs.  In fact she came at the end of last week and tore down our bird feeder in broad daylight and enjoyed the seeds with her cubs, destroying the feeder.  Used to be that I could put out a feeder during the day and bring it in at night, then out again the next day.  But that isn’t working this year, it’s the second daytime feeder destruction of the summer, so I think I’ll have to wait until winter to feed the birds….disappointing.

So, the bear hunt seems like it’s necessary…even though I hate the idea.

Mom….

…and the Kids (Cubs) walking through our front yard after coming around the side of the house. Taken from the front door.  See how cute they are and why I am so conflicted?

These photos are have copyright and licensing restrictions, click through the image for details.

Last year my husband and I started Geocaching, we aren’t out there every weekend like some enthusiasts, but enjoy our times when we do go out.  It’s great exercise and not an expensive hobby.  All you need is a hiking or biking GPS (not the kind that you use in your car) and a way to find “caches” in your area.  You can find more information, and see what we do visit a page I put together called “Geocaching Baby Boomers” (I have new pictures that I have to add, but there are some there), and you can find out more about Geocaching at the MAIN site, geocaching.com.

Here are some pages devoted just to Geocaching in New Jersey:

• Geocaching in New Jersey (at geocaching.com)
• Northern New Jersey Cachers
• Central Jersey Geocaching
• South Jersey Geocaching (not sure how active this one is?)

Here’s a video put together by the North Jersey group…you don’t have to see snakes, get scratched up, and some of the other delightful things you’ll see here, because when you use geocaching.com to find and upload caches in areas you want to explore, you can set parameters ahead of time to avoid whatever you’d like to avoid. It REALLY IS a LOT of fun!

I was browsing New Jersey topics today, and read an article about the comeback that the Bald Eagle is making in New Jersey.  We often watch large birds circle in the sky and wonder if one is an eagle…are more accustomed to seeing them when we travel to Maine, but apparently, they are indeed finding their way into the Garden State.

The following video was interesting…it always bothers me just a bit when they take the animals from their nests and do all the things that they do to study and research, must be terribly unsettling for the animal, but that is the way it is, and is done for good reason.

Have any of you seen our Nation’s symbolic bird, the bald eagle, where you are?

Other NJ Wildlife Posts You Might Like:

New Jersey State Bird, the Cute Little Goldfinch

A Visit By a Young Bear

Turkeys and Peacocks at New Jersey Ecology Center in Wyckoff, NJ

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

This past summer, we had the pleasure of seeing Goldfinches come to our bird feeder, especially in the Spring when the yellow was so bright an vivid.  I have a tiny little picture of one at our feeder, wish the camera had been closer.  Instead I have chosen to share one from Webshots, if you want to see other pictures by the photographer, just click the picture.

The Goldfinch is our State bird, and was declared so in Senate Act No. 241 which was introduced in January of 1935 by a Mr. Kuser. At that time, 44 States had state birds, and I am sure the Mr. Kuser figured that it was high time that New Jersey did, too.

I have been feeding the birds for years, but recently I purchased thistle seeds to use with a thistle feeder, and the picture on the packaging had many Goldfinches on it.  I was planning to use the seeds over the winter, and asked whether birds other than goldfinches would eat the seed, the woman at the store said that Goldfinches are around all year, but lose the vivid yellow during the cooler months.  That was new information to this bird-lover.

I hope you are enjoying the beautiful fall colors if you are living here in the northeast.

My husband spent the weekend working around the house, including building a new enclosed area for our trash cans.  We haven’t had any trouble with bears in our trash all summer, but wouldn’t you know, last evening after supper, only a day after his finishing this project, we had a visitor.  I guess he likes the new design   My pictures are a little blurry because I was SO excited, but here’s a few shots off the side of my deck, he/she dragged a bag of trash from the can he knocked over and carried it into our neighbors yard.  I quietly called my husband as I snapped these, and the bear ran, leaving a nice mess for us to clean up.

(Blurry zoom-in, shaky hands, just too excited )

(Picture from Webshots, click picture for more)

This pretty little flower has somehow found enough soil in a tree to take root and grow. It is this flower that grows wild in the woodlands and along the roadsides of New Jersey. I have some that come up in my garden each year, and though I have to pull some of them, do leave a little patch of them because they are so pretty. Even the heart-shaped leaves are attractive.It took a little doing to get the legislature proclaiming this as New Jersey’s State flower to pass. The first attempt goes as far back as 1913, which passed, but was a designation that would only last a year. Then in 1963 another attempt was made, to no avail. Finally, as recently as 1971, a year after I graduated from high school (“recent” to me anyway) those wonderful garden clubs that are all over our state and others were persistent enough in their requests that the common violet, viola sororia, became the State flower.

A day or so ago, I gave you a view of our home from the street, here’s what we see out our bedroom window. The leaves are just beginning to grow on the trees, so you are not seeing them in their full green glory, but it’s been quiet, beautiful and serene for the past few days.

I have a swing on the deck that I love to sit in on quiet evenings, as the sun is just beginning to go down. This picture wasn’t taken at that time of day, but it is beautiful looking across the lake…the water is still, with only the fish eating causing rings that spread out, out, and out some more, joining rings formed by other fish. An occasional mallard will fly and land on the surface. Geese will join them, and now the little gosling’s and ducklings are appearing.

Yesterday was a nice day, not as sunny as it has been here in New Jersey for the past couple weeks, and not quite as warm, but with everything turning green, it is still beautiful. It was a busy day, but we took a little time between stops to unwind at the Ecology Center in Wyckoff which is now called the James A. McFaul Environmental Center. We have visited there during many occasions in our life, when we were dating we had pictures taken there; when our children were young we took them to see the animals and walk the trails; now that they are grown, we just go to walk, remember and enjoy the peaceful environment. Here are a few pictures for you:

These turkeys were so much fun to watch, they couldn’t get enough of strutting their stuff, and the closer we got to the cage, the more they strutted, what a pair!

The Peacocks never did display their tail feathers for us, there were two of them, but looking closely at the tail feathers, you could imagine what it would have looked like. It was amazing to see them run around with their long, beautiful “train” behind them.

Yes, that’s me, and I’ll do my usual female thing of saying it was at the end of a long day, I didn’t have time to fix myself up, I forgot to take of my glasses, yadayadayada, but that’s the real me, no escaping it! Isn’t the tree beautiful?

When it was time to leave, two handsome geese lead the way, a fine end to a beautiful day!

(I just had to come back and take a closer look at this picture, my husband just told me that if you look closely to the left of the goose furthest away, there are two little goslings, I think that’s how you spell it? Can you see them? They are SO tiny right now. We saw another mother goose on her nest quickly pull her little ones under her…you couldn’t see them, but could hear their little “peeps” from under her.)