Jason Enos and his wife, Sarah Hedlund, were sitting in the living room of their Germantown house on a Wednesday night in May when they looked out to see a black bear drinking from a birdbath on their backyard deck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were both in the living room,\u201d Enos told Bethesda Today, \u201cJust out of the blue, she said, \u2018There\u2019s a bear on the deck.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Enos said he immediately went for his camera, and when he returned to look through the glass of his back door overlooking the deck, he saw the furry creature.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure enough, there\u2019s a black bear sitting on the deck at the top of the stairs,\u201d\u00a0 Enos said. \u201cAnd so I just rolled off as many frames as I could get of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enos shared his photos in a p<\/a>o<\/a>st<\/a> online of the bear, who he affectionately named Yogi.<\/p>\n He said it\u2019s not uncommon to see wildlife in his backyard, given his house is adjacent to Black Hill Regional Park, but seeing a bear last month wasn\u2019t on his bingo card.<\/p>\n Black bear sightings typically happen during June and July, as young bears look for places to call home, according to Jonathan Trudeau, the game mammal section leader of the Wildlife and Heritage Service of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR).<\/p>\n Trudeau told Bethesda Today bears have learned to navigate what are called \u201cgreen corridors,\u201d or suburban areas that have cover such as trees and shrubs, as well as access to water.<\/p>\n \u201cThey look for those natural environments \u2026 because that\u2019s where the cover is,\u201d Trudeau said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to make themselves susceptible. So they\u2019re going to stay in those green spaces that provide that shelter.\u201d<\/p>\n Enos thinks Yogi may have been attracted to the backyard because of the birdfeeders, which he said he usually brings indoors \u2026 except for that fateful night.<\/p>\n \u201cHe probably caught a whiff of that,\u201d Enos said. \u201cHe had to have had a good reason to come up \u2014 we\u2019re quite a distance up from the ground in the backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n As occurs annually, black bears have been spotted around the county this year. A NextDoor post<\/a> in May included the photo of a bear spotted off Schaeffer Road near the Maryland SoccerPlex in Boyds. Another video<\/a> posted online by a dogwalker showed a black bear using a crosswalk in a Germantown neighborhood.<\/p>\n Seeing a bear in your neighborhood is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, according to Trudeau.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very small percentage of our population that\u2019s ever seen a bear in the wild in Maryland,\u201d he said. \u201cSo first and foremost, enjoy that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, he added that it is important to be careful and keep a safe distance.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you see a bear in your backyard, \u2026 don\u2019t run out there trying to chase it off,\u201d Trudeau said. \u201cCall the DNR.\u201d<\/p>\n