Bear Flat Flora and Fauna

March 1, 2026,

We had some interesting interactions with ‘Flora and Fauna’ in 2025 and no, that is nothing like Thelma and Louise.

Supplied photo

The south facing hillsides here in the valley are home to prickly pear cactus that briefly flower normally around July 1st. The rain and heat must have lined up just right last year to produce the most prolific production of flowers we have seen that stretched out over an unusually long period of time.

On October 12, a doe mule deer ran wildly through our yard like the devil was on its tail, bounced off our high garden fence, and continued down to the reservoir’s edge where she jumped in without hesitation. 

She started swimming west towards the land just west of Cache Creek, which made sense as it is the closest land, but then she turned south and went towards the distant south bank of the main reservoir. 

It took over 30 minutes of steady swimming to reach the bank where it took her another 30 minutes to find a way up the steep eroded bank.  I never did determine what if anything that caused her panicked flight.

Even though it is open to the outdoors, I find I must keep the mouse population under control in our equipment pole building to avoid grief with them chewing and getting into everything. 

On the morning of October 15^th  with the temperature at only about 3 degrees C, I found a little brown bat in a mouse trap that was still alive and not visibly harmed. 

Wearing gloves, I removed him from the trap and put him inside our greenhouse where it was much warmer and left the door partially open. 

When I checked several hours later when it had warmed up considerably, he (or perhaps ‘she’ or even ‘they’?) was gone. 

To my knowledge there is no identified nearby bat hibernacula, and this bat was out and about much later in the season than they are supposed to be.

About those mouse traps, I dispose of any mice that are caught by leaving them on our driveway in the same spot where ravens or other scavengers can pick them up. 

Last summer a ‘tame’ raven showed up who would watch for me going out to check the traps every morning. Our grandson enjoyed his visits and called him Danny. 

However, ‘tame’ wildlife can be problematic, and Danny started to wear out his welcome. 

He would come into our garden and started copying what we were picking with his own foraging. 

That was pushing the limits of our tolerance, and his visits were somewhat discouraged after that.

While going for a walk with some friends at our property west of Cache Creek on November 11^th, we came across a large garter snake on a trail. 

That too is much past the time that snakes are normally seen out.  This was not far from the Site C reservoir, so it could be that he was displaced by fluctuating water levels or such, but impossible to say for certain. 

I did not measure him, but it was the largest garter snake I have ever seen.  I could give an estimate, but that would be as unreliable as my fish stories.