A little more on Frosty, from another recent visit.
Check out what he did in front of my White Garden. 😂
Bears love to leave each other scent-messages in any number of ways, as most of you know. One of the ways is by scratching their backs and leaving bits of their oily fur on tree trunks, or biting and clawing tree trunks. Another is by leaving urine trails and other bodily fluids wherever they go, typically on foliage or low-growing plants, like flexible saplings. (Aka the Sapling Straddle.) One of the more dramatic ways that bears will mark their territory is by "stomping" on the ground as they walk, which releases more scent from the glands in their paws. Bear paws are marvelously fragrant , to a bear.
The scent-marks that bears leave one another can impart an amazing amount of information. During mating season, I will notice a lot more stomp-marking than usual, as bears leave their calling cards for one another. Males can discern whether sows are in estrus and are ready to mate, just from investigating their scent-trails, alone.
I love how bear expert Ben Kilham calls this stomping routine the "Stiff-Legged Walk." It most certainly is that.
And Frosty has most definitely been stomping his way around up here!
11 окт 2024
