NORTHAMPTON — Deborah Kowal was bird watching near her home on Hatfield Street on Monday afternoon when some bigger game wandered into view.
Two bears appeared, investigating a nearby crabapple tree.
“I was photographing a woodpecker in a tree when all of a sudden these two just showed up,” Kowal, 45, said. “I was happy I had the camera.”
The pair, which Kowal believes she has seen before in previous years with their mother, ate berries and hung out in a neighbor’s yard for about 30 minutes, she said.
“I was inside at the time so I felt safe,” she said. “I was more concerned they were going to destroy my neighbors trash, but they didn’t.”
Kowal enjoys photographing nature, particularly birds.
“I dabble,” she said. “I like showing them to friends and I share a lot of my pictures online.”
She hopes someday to see a moose, but it hasn’t happened yet. Moose have been known to enter Northampton, as was the case recently when multiple residents phoned in moose sightings to police earlier this month.
As for the bears, Kowal was pleased to see them for the first time this spring.
“It’s nice to appreciate them as long as you leave them alone,” she said.
Northampton police said there was no unusual bear trouble to report Tuesday. Ralph Taylor — Department of Fisheries and Wildlife’s Connecticut Valley District Manager — said bears wandering into downtown is nothing new for Northampton.
Typically, bears should be coming out of hibernation around this time, Taylor said, but most Northampton-area bears no longer hibernate because of the availability of human-sourced food, such as bird seed and garbage, that is consistently available to them in the downtown area.
“They’re able to get food all the time all winter long, so there’s no reason for them to stay in the woods,” said Taylor, adding that Northampton’s resident bears can be seen all year long bouncing from backyard porch to porch, stealing snacks from local bird-lovers. “This happens every spring and in Northampton it’s pretty much constant.”
Any uptick in moose sightings, Taylor said, are pegged to the season. Around this time, he said, mother moose typically chase off their young, male offspring in preparation for mating season.
“Springtime means movement for moose,” Taylor said. “It’s time for the young males to go off on their own so they’re not attacked by the larger bulls.”
As a result, Taylor said, the young bulls are sniffing around for a place to settle.
“They’ll find their homes or get hit by cars,” he said.
Because moose are so tall and have such long legs, the brunt of the animal’s body mass often strikes a car’s windshield, Taylor said, meaning “the capability of moose to kill people is high” in accidents. He said there have been three moose-related deaths along Massachusetts highways in the past ten years.
Dave Eisenstadter can be reached at deisen@gazettenet.com.
Amanda Drane can be reached at adrane@gazettenet.com.