Bear Facts

This incident was reported by:

 Sharon Hill 1127 Lakeshore Dr North.

At 3:00 a.m. this morning, June 22, 2012, we had an unwelcome visitor. A very large
bear was leaning in our screened porch. He/she ripped the screening
on our porch and grabbed the garbage can...took it up into the woods and
found there wasn't much in there... came back a second time and we
managed to scare him off with the dog, lights and banging pots and pans
together...he started to go off but turned around and decided he needed
to look further. He started to walk up the side of the house and
suddenly changed his mind and disappeared into the dark again. I think
he was going for the barbeque so I ran out and removed the grills (we
had barbequed dinner last night). I plunged them into a sink of water
with lots of soap and vinegar and hoped he wouldn't smell them. We
closed all the windows in the house and tried to encourage our dog to
bark, but I think she was scared silly too. The important thing is that
this bear does not scare easily and in the 9 years we have lived here
this is the first such occurrence. Is it coincidence or is it because
as of 1 month ago we are down to 1 dog? We also realized that the only
real 'noise maker' we had was the air horn in the boat and there was no
way we were going out for that. I think we'll buy one for the house
now.

Take care everyone.

Territorial Loon

It was a great weekend on Leech lake for wildlife watching. I was on the dock with my long lens and heard a commotion near our swim platform. Some very young mallards got separated from the mother and the male loon went crazy. Fortunately for the little ones they can move pretty quick on top of the water but it was exciting for a minute or so.

Barry Shepherd

Weekend Wildlife Watch

For some reason the mallard family hung around the cottage and a couple of times the female ventured right up the stairs to the deck like she expected hand outs. I guess some people are feeding them. We would not do that.

The new family with 8 little ones cruised around our dock.

Then if that was not enough a very large beaver decided to make an appearance and munch on our weeds. This guy looked pretty old.

Barry Shepherd

Leech Loon Babies - Hooray

Leech lake loon babies!

Please forgive the blurriness, but these were taken from our deck, and the loons were about 500ft from shore.
We counted three, on her back and swimming around her.

Thanks
The Stewarts

Leech Lake Baby!!

We have a baby!
My wife and I saw something on the end of our dock during the heavy winds that hit us yesterday.  We got out our scope, and there she was trying to shelter herself from the wind.
Here's some pics taken from inside, looking out through our windows.
See the little leg poking out from under her wing.....

Shortly after the last pic, the little one jumped into the water with the mother in pursuit.  Unfortunately, it looked as though the mother was hurt. Limping badly, as though her left leg was sore, barely able to jump over the 3 inch gap between our docks.  She seemed to swim off fine, and i checked on them an hour later down the shore and all seemed ok.

The Stewarts

Current Loon Picture

We were kayaking on the lake at 5 am yesterday (June 10.12) and followed the loon for about half an hour. He seems quite happy if we kept our distance. Not sure what he thinks of the power craft though.

I attached a shot of him plus the "Loon Nesting" sign. Lets hope they are successful and we see more little ones soon.

Barry Shepherd