Bumblebee on Butterfly WeedWhen Lynn needs to regroup, he takes time out, gets behind a camera, and sits watchfully—often accompanied by his wife Donna.
He needed to do that today to get ready for an hour-long interview that can be heard at http://www.metrofarm.com/assets/podcasts/2013-08-03_930d_bears.mp3. Award-winning host Michael Olson was terrific. Nicely spaced ads let Lynn think about what to say when the host came back live. It finally was a chance to get some truth out to a big audience. The program is based in California but airs on stations across the country.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird female at bee-balm flowerLynn and Donna spent time together enjoying the beauty of nature—always a grounding experience. Photographing nature takes Lynn back to the old days when taking pictures for nature magazines helped him through graduate school.
The bird focus today was Ruby-throated Hummingbirds—various settings, different lights.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker fledglingA Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that was just learning to fly landed on a white pine to make a photographic record of fledging on or about this date this year.
The bee focus was bumblebees on Cinderella butterfly weed flowers (Asclepias incarnata).
Jim Stroner connected with Faith to swap her GPS unit.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird maleThe Black Bear Field Courses are an absolute delight. Another one starts tomorrow. Each course is filled with strong Lily Fans who know all the bears, how old they are, who their relatives are, and so much about them. We want to continue the sense of family, the feeling of meeting old friends (even though we are meeting them for the first time) who know all about the bears and what we do and what we are trying to accomplish.
A Lily Fan sent us this comment from ‘Professor Joe’ on the July 29 Washington Post article about the DNR and our permit situation.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird female"Lynn Rogers has been the victim of a lynch mob led by the hunting lobby which began when he began to educate thousands of school children via the webcam and became a BBC star. When hunters targeted his collared bears and thousands of viewers were appalled Lynn simply "had to go". What is Lynn's crime? He portrays bears as the timid omnivores that they are. This is heresy to the "Field and Stream" image of the snarling Bruin standing on two legs hovering over an unseated range rider. Just like Copernicus, Darwin, and any other true Scientist who questions long held beliefs, heresy must be punished. Don’t believe this? Check out the priorities in the compromise agreement. While the DNR claims hand feeding is a public danger they acquiesce to its continuing but draw a line in the sand on educating the Kiddies via the den cams. Don't want the kids to learn the truth about bears or they may grow up to question the annual slaughter of bears that many times weigh less than 100 lbs. It's time to tell the Governor of Minnesota that a free society should not have a government agency appointed by the gun and hunting lobby determining what children are taught in school."‘Professor Joe’ was responding to the DNR prohibiting public broadcast of the Den Cams.
Thank you for all you do.
—Lynn Rogers and Sue Mansfield, Biologists, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.