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Friends?!

January 24, 2011

The Blue-eyed Bear looks to her Arctic friends for help finding a new home.

The Arctic is melting! So, in her search for a new home the Blue-eyed bear is looking to her Arctic friends for a possible solution. She asks the Arctic Tern, who travels 22,000 miles a year round trip from arctic to antarctic, for their opinion of home. The Tern says Turn south!

The Blue-eyed Bear then goes to fine her friends the Polar Bees! They are bumble bees (Bombus polaris) who live in underground nests were they stash a bit of honey in the short arctic summer. Although the bee’s share their sisterhood with the BE Bear they won’t share their home or honey and the BE Bear must move on!

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What would the B-E Bear do…

December 27, 2010

if she found a Fallen Star?

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Winter Solstice

December 19, 2010

Bear fire greets the solstice eclipse.

Happy Winter Solstice to All! In many cultures the shortest day or the year or the longest night is greeted by the lighting of fires. The Blue-eyed bear is herself a luminary with a fire all her own and so greets the New Year. When other bears are deep in their hibernation, the Blue-eyed Bear continues her search for home! She has had many adventures in the past year. With the help of her friends she visited Ireland, France, China, British Columbia, and Florida. (The bear chronicler has many stories yet to tell). Some adventures like her trip to the Gulf Coast to witness the BP oil spill are not adventures the BE Bear would want to repeat. (She hopes she helped wildlife rescue a little). Still others like the her trip into space got postponed and she is looking forward to continuing that exploration in the new year! What will the New Year bring?!! It can only be an Adventure !!!!! !!!!!

This year the solstice is marked by a total eclipse of the moon. The Blue-eyed bear is looking forward to witnessing this not often seen phenomenon. She will welcome the Moon back as she also welcomes the Sun back for the start of the New Year. Some say that because of the volcanoes Eyjafjallajokull and Merapi dust in the upper atmosphere may make the moon in eclipse almost black. Since this eclipse can be seen from the entire North American continent many of the Bear’s friends can join her in this Adventure !!!!! !!!!!


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The Kells Adventure Continues

December 9, 2010

Fisher Bear

The Blue-eyed Bear is hungry for salmon and she has found them in abundance in the Book of Kells. The Greek word for fish icthus is an anagram for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. And the fish symbolic of the Christ has been used since the 2nd century. The Kells serpents too, are thought to be a symbol of the resurrection as the snake is renewed to life by shedding its skin or physical body . The BE Bear just finds the Kells serpents supportive and the fish tasty! What more could a bear want!

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Exploring Kells

November 22, 2010

Ubi mel ibi Ursa

The Blue-eyed Bear is exploring the wildness within the Book of Kells a 9th century Irish/Celtic illuminated Gospel. There is a whole bestiary within the pages of the book, but no bears. So the B-E Bear created her own illuminated passage. It states “where there is honey there are bears.”

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Bears in Space!

October 18, 2010

The Blue-eyed Bear wants to help collect space junk!

The Blue-eyed Bear is going into space by way of the Space Shuttle Discovery! The BE Bear doesn’t usually use human conveyance, but if you want to go into outer space, the Shuttle is the best way. The Bear is going as part of the NASA program Faces in Space. Her real mission is to try and capture some of the space junk that  is collecting around the Earth from  50+ years of Humans dumping their mess. The Junk is getting so dense its becoming a danger. The BE Bear thinks if she is successful maybe NASA will deploy a crew of bears on a clean-up mission. Such a mission might prove to Humans the importance of bears and it could provide a new home for her and/or some of her wandering kin before the ice totally melts.

Discovery blasts off with the BE Bear from the Kennedy Space Center Nov 1st at 4:40 PM EDT. The mission is STS-133. The crew will be heading to the International Space Station to deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 4 and the Multipurpose Logistics Module. Stay tuned to see if the BE Bear will enjoy the ride!

The Blue-eyed Bear's Mission patch.

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Welsh Badgers Under Fire

October 14, 2010

Bear meets Badger

The Blue-eyed bear has found a Welsh badger (meles meles) and doesn’t think this Brock looks dangerous. Brock is the Celtic word for Badger it can be translated as “grey”. It seems that some humans think think that badgers spread the disease TB to cattle through their urine. Humans want to shoot the badgers to stop the spread of the disease in cattle. All this is to happen in May of 2011. Some humans those of the Badger Trust are trying to stop this proposed badger cull. Apparently there is no good scientific proof to show that the cattle actually get TB from badgers or that killing the badgers will eliminate the TB. All studies have been inconclusive. So maybe they should look at the problem starting with how the cattle are handled. But there’s that old adage “shoot first and ask questions latter”. That is generally how humans solve their problems no matter how much pain they cause.

Badgers are one of the largest natural land mammals left in Wales and the Land of Eng. The bear had been eliminated from that land thousands of years ago. So the B-E Bear better lie low or she may get her butt shot too!

Bagders are great excavators; they dig complex burrows called setts that can house a family group or a single badger. Badgers like some bears are omnivores, They eat insects fruit, roots, small mammals etc.  Badgers are also like bears in that they have great determination and focus.  They can be independent and confident, yet fierce in their protection of their home turf and family. Badgers hibernate in the winter so the B-E Bear will soon have to say goodbye to her new friend Brock. Hopefully, he will not have to awake to guns pointed down his sett in the spring.

Please Don't Shoot!

 

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Highland Adventure Continues

September 24, 2010

The Blue-eyed Bear has found her wings!

A dragon from a Scottish Highland loch has saved our favorite bear from a dreadful fall.  The dragon morphed in size, as some dragons are known to do, and now is just right to carry the B-E Bear. Some might say that the dragon morphed from the bumblebee to save the B-E Bear. Bees can move in mysterious ways, especially Scottish bees. Any way the dragon is flying the B-E Bear south to Whales and the land of Eng.  The B-E Bear wants to find out who is badgering our friend Mr. Badger. Stay tuned!

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Highland Adventure

August 30, 2010

Following the Scottish Bumble Bees. . .

Can Bears Fly?

Saved by the Spirit of Place!

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Please Don’t Forget!

August 22, 2010

Oil is no longer gushing into the Gulf of Mexico but the the fight to save and protect the creatures that live in those sullied waters continues. A recent study published in the Journal Nature by scientists from Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute has found that oil is still present in the deep ocean 1000 to 3000 meters below the surface, this undersea cloud of oil is 2k wide and extends out 35 k from the spill site. The good news is its not dense. But the Blue-eyed Bear suspects that even the slightest concentrations will affect sea life. Continued monitoring is essential. So the Blue-eyed Bear asks everyone just to help a little by supporting those conservation organizations that are helping to assess and mitigated the devastation.

The B-E has adopted the loggerhead sea turtle LuLu to help fund that Sea Turtle Conservancy. This group is working to move hatchling sea turtles from the Gulf beaches to the east coast of Florida so that they don’t swim out into the fowled gulf waters and die. NASA is also helping with the turtle relocation. Check out the NASA web site for more details.