We get a visit in the night

Friday night, Henry observed the following:

Well, I saw my motion detector light go on outside. I thought there was a car pulling up. So I looked out my bedroom window and I saw a big black bear with a grey nose, but the tip of the nose was black.

I went to my parent’s room and said, “Mom! Dad! Call the animal patrol! There’s a bear outside!” We all ran back into my room and looked out the window. Luckily the motion detector light was still on, but we didn’t see the bear.

Dad ran downstairs. He looked out the porch window, turned the backyard floodlights on and here is what he saw:

Jeff observed the following:

I remember Henry saying it was a black bear. He swore that’s what he has seen and I know that Henry really knows his creatures, so I had no reason to doubt it. I crept down the stairs to turn on the backyard floodlights, which are not on motion detect and have to be turned on from the second-floor screen porch. I opened the door, switched on the outside floodlights, and listened. I didn’t hear anything, so I started tip toeing to the screens. That’s when I heard the footsteps start. And they were very close, it sounded like it was right underneath me. It must have stopped walking when it heard me or when the lights came on. But it didn’t seem in a hurry; the steps were very slow and heavy-sounding in the crunchy snow, like a human’s. It was heading out toward the back lawn, right where the floodlights shine. When I got to the screen, there he was, 10 yards away walking away from me! He had walked down along the west side of the house, and was now shuffling out onto our backyard lawn. We have seen small black bears crossing through our backyard before, but this one was big. Definitely full-grown. He turned back toward the house once or twice and the nose was just as Henry described. I wanted the others to see, so I ran upstairs just as he started heading across the back of the house toward the fire pit. By the time I got Henry and Susie to Maggie’s window, they only got a quick glimpse. Poor Maggie was almost asleep when we rushed into her room and turned off her princess lamp so we could see out the window, much to her chagrin.

Maggie observed the following:

It was very scary.

And I observed the following:

I saw the tail end of the black bear heading around the tree toward the fire pit.