We had ribs, potatoes and green salad, on the grill tonight. And an unexpected dinner guest - a bear. While we were eating, one of our security cameras alerted us to a visitor. The bear was wandering in the backyard, nose in the air. I thought it smelled our ribs and might show up on the deck any minute. Then it headed to the 2 bird feeders which we had just restocked with meal worms for the bluebirds and Baltimore orioles yesterday. We always bring our feeders in by April 1, which is unfortunate since migrating birds have limited food supplies at that time, but so do bears leaving their dens. This year, we decided to provide our birds with a feast - oranges, grape jelly, meal worms, suet, nuts and seeds as well as hummingbird liquid. We yelled and chased the bear off, it came back twice, but has not returned for over an hour now. I don't know what we'll do about feeding the birds -- bears do not forget where they have located potential meals.
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