The local crows have found out about the copious amounts of food that are provided for our cubs.  Crows being the hungry and noisy creatures that they are, have been visiting to partake of the feast.  The yearling bears aren’t bothered, but the cubs are frightened by these noisy, raucous birds and take refuge in a tree.  Although the cubs are quite a bit bigger than the crows, they don’t feel very brave when the birds swoop in, cawing loudly.

Rollo climbed the tree to get away. He doesn’t like crows.

Rollo soothes himself by sucking on his paw.

Just as human babies will suck their thumbs for comfort, bear cubs often suck their paws.  Sometimes a cub will suck the ear of a sibling cub.

Otto has climbed up to get away from the noisy crows, too.

Otto comforts himself by sucking on his paw.

The crows left and the cubs climbed down to forage.

When we had cubs last year who were frightened by crows, Curator Coy hung up a fake crow, hoping to frighten the crows away.  Here is the fake, and we can see a real crow in the background.  The real crow doesn’t seem too alarmed by the fake.

Fake crow and real crow.

It won’t take too long for the cubs to get over their fear, as they realize that they are bigger than the crows.  Then they will probably start chasing the birds.  However, black bears are very timid animals and easily frightened by things that are much smaller than they are.