So this evening as I was finishing a salmon dinner (note the subtle motif about to emerge), a bear showed up in my yard–actually he kind of shambled up. Ever the amateur shutterbug, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos. It’s funny (not ha ha funny, though) that in my novel about to debut, The Bird Saviors, there’s a part about a cranky polygamist father, nicknamed Lord God, who tells his daughter that the bears come down from the high country during droughts, to raid outlying homes for food. (Raid is perhaps a term best used for barbarians at the gate, but the bears are hungry. One ripped open my shed last year to get at the garbage cans inside. Now I pay for a bear-proof dumpster. You get the picture.) We’re in the middle of two-year drought, and have had bears mangle our bird feeders, multiple times.
It’s like a chapter out of the book, life imitating art and all that. I nicknamed him Billy. How original! An artsier sort would no doubt name him Balthazar, BoBama, or Beethoven. Of course I could name him John Irving, who has a new novel out right now. But I won’t. He can name his own bear.
For those who like their wildlife info particular, this is actually a Black Bear—Ursus americanus—though his coat is obviously a shaggy brown, which is common in these here parts.
