When I arrived at this trail camera to check on it and swap out the SD card I knew at once that bears had visited the pool it overlooks, because the camera was aimed at the ground. The camera had gone unchecked for three weeks and I knew by the relatively scant number of videos that the mischief had been done early on, a terribly annoying but not uncommon occurrence for me.

My irritation vanished when I watched the videos and saw what the culprit had been up to right before she messed with my camera. She plunged into this pool, seeming at first to be taken aback by its depth (there has been a LOT of rain on the Gila National Forest), and then she stood tall on her hind legs and brought her front paws down on the water's surface to create a mighty splash. Thus emboldened, she began and perfected a series of four belly flops. I'm not sure when I have laughed so hard over a trail cam video, and I thought to myself, Only a bear could get away with making that kind of a racket in the forest.

Then she got out of the pool, shook gallons of water off her coat, and ambled over to sabotage my recording efforts.

When I arrived at this trail camera to check on it and swap out the SD card I knew at once that bears had visited the pool it overlooks, because the camera was aimed at the ground. The camera had gone unchecked for three weeks and I knew by the relatively scant number of videos that the mischief had been done early on, a terribly annoying but not uncommon occurrence for me.

My irritation vanished when I watched the videos and saw what the culprit had been up to right before she messed with my camera. She plunged into this pool, seeming at first to be taken aback by its depth (there has been a LOT of rain on the Gila National Forest), and then she stood tall on her hind legs and brought her front paws down on the water's surface to create a mighty splash. Thus emboldened, she began and perfected a series of four belly flops. I'm not sure when I have laughed so hard over a trail cam video, and I thought to myself, Only a bear could get away with making that kind of a racket in the forest.

Then she got out of the pool, shook gallons of water off her coat, and ambled over to sabotage my recording efforts.