Design

Normally, I think of encouraging toads, woodpeckers, box turtles, chipmunks, dragonflies, butterflies, and owls as a desirable consequence of creating wildlife habitat in our gardens. Seed-eating birds of all sorts enjoy visiting feeders, of course, and hummingbirds readily slurp up sugar water. There are plenty of adaptable critters, too, that are well-suited to suburban life and can be pesky (think skunks, opossums, and squirrels). Much to our surprise, though, just before lunch, an unexpected visitor discovered the black oil sunflower seed feeder outside our small house in the mountains. It didn't take long for this young Eastern black bear to bend down the feeder pole (I should have bought the cast iron one, not the aluminum one) and deftly help himself (probably 'him' not 'her') to the entire contents of the feeder, mouthful by mouthful. There is a heavily wooded ravine below, but we're at the highest point, and there's not much of an obvious wildlife ...