Hi Tweets,

A small caveat about small bells in thick forest.

In valleys which get a lot of cold-air ponding and consequent heavy dews, on
the forest floor there's usually a ground-covering of thick moss plus heavy
vegetation which absorbs high-frequency sounds of small bells before they've
had a chance to travel very far, while lower-pitched voices will carry
further. Birds don't seem to be able to hear the lower freqencies, and
territorial forest birds just carry on singing.

For those bushwhacking or doing bird survey transects (often the same thing)
in deep forest, a stick rapped every few minutes against a clipboard creates
a enough noise to let any bear in the vicinity know you're there (talking to
yourself about the miseries of living in the same city the Vancouver Canucks
come from helps, too--no sane bear will go anywhere near such a wailing and
moaning maniac) while a pencil tapped in a random sequence against it will
interest any territorial woodpeckers in the vicinity.

For those whose work or hobby takes them streamside in bear country, I found
some small compressed-air horns for sale in nautical supply stores; honked
about every couple hundred meters, they can be heard over the sound of all
but the most tumultuous rivers.

As for effectiveness of bear-sprays and mists, no comment. I hear some talk
of trials 'proving' one thing or another, but everthing's been
anecdotal--I've seen no scientific studies. Has anyone? I guess there's been
few volunteers to field-test the stuff for 'Consumer Reports'. Rather have
it than not, though.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)