Michael, BJ, and the wild families who found a home in eight acres of woods(COOLFLY App username: Coolfly6296679)
When Michael first wrote to us, it was to share a video of a bear at his bird feeder.
The bear was remarkable. Michael's reaction to it was almost matter-of-fact.
"It was actually my second bear," he said.
The first had been a smaller female who managed to open the metal can where Michael kept cracked corn for the deer. She carried off the entire 40-pound bag, apparently saving it as a snack for later.
This was life around Michael's home. His backyard was not really a backyard in the usual sense. It was eight acres of woods, where deer passed through, hummingbirds returned with the seasons, Pileated Woodpeckers reduced parts of his cedar pergola to wood chips, and Swallow-tailed Kites appeared overhead, beautiful and deadly.
"There's always something going on," he wrote.
The bear could have been the whole story. But when we asked Michael what else had happened in those woods, his answer moved in another direction. He began with an injured bird and a phone call from a neighbor. Then, almost without trying to, he opened a much larger story about his wife, BJ, and the animals that seemed to recognize something in her.
By the end of his email, Michael thanked us for reminding him of those memories.
The Bird Who Found Her Again
A lot of people knew Michael's wife as BJ. Neighbors knew that she cared about animals, although Michael was never quite sure how they decided she was the person to call when one needed help.
"I have no clue," he said. "She was just one of those people that men, women, children and small animals loved."
Everyone took to BJ as though she were family, he explained, probably because she treated them like family. If he had to describe her in one word, that word would be loving.
One day, a neighbor who lived about half a mile away called BJ about a bird in the yard that could not fly. BJ went over immediately and found a Black Vulture hopping around on the ground. The following day, she returned with cat kibble, put the food down, and stepped back. The vulture ate every piece.
She continued feeding it for several weeks and gave it a name: Egor.
Then one day, the bird was gone. Michael and BJ wondered whether a coyote or some other animal had gotten it. There was no way to know. The woods were full of life, but they did not offer explanations when something disappeared.
A few days later, Michael was sitting on the couch when he looked toward the kitchen window. A Black Vulture was perched on the deck banister, looking in at him.
It was Egor.
Somehow, the bird BJ had fed half a mile away had found their home.
BJ took a container of food outside. Egor flew to the roof, then followed her into the yard and walked beside her as she went to put the food down. That became the beginning of a new routine. Other vultures flew away when BJ came outside. Egor stayed, waited, and ate near her without fear.
BJ had helped a wild bird when it could not fly. Once it could leave, it chose to come back.
Complete Trust
Egor did more than return alone.
One morning, BJ went outside with food and found two adult Black Vultures in the yard with three juveniles. The adults had their wings spread wide, shielding the young the way vultures do when drying their feathers. When BJ approached, they moved the juveniles aside and allowed her into the space between them.
Michael watched from inside the house.
He understood what the adults were risking. These were wild animals allowing a human being close to their young. To him, there was only one possible explanation for it: Egor had brought its mate and offspring to the person it trusted.
"Astonishment. Amazement," Michael recalled. "What animal or person would do that without complete trust? I just watched in silence from the house. Amazed."
Nothing in the moment was staged. BJ had not tried to tame Egor, and Egor had never stopped being wild. Their relationship had grown from something much simpler: she had noticed an animal in trouble, returned with food, and kept returning until it was strong enough to leave.
Then Egor returned that trust in the most extraordinary way it could. It brought its family home.
The scene stayed with Michael not only because of how unusual it was, but because it seemed to reveal something he already knew about BJ. Animals felt safe around her. People did too.
Egor's family was not the only one to appear. BJ also fed a family of foxes, and eventually the mother brought her kits to eat. Deer came through the property year after year. Michael remembers one doe returning with a yearling, and another season when she appeared with twins. Hummingbirds came back each year, giving him chances to photograph them. Turkeys filled the yard, including gobblers in full display. The woods continually introduced new lives, then brought familiar ones back again.
The Life They Shared With the Woods
Michael and BJ did not limit their care to the wildlife passing through. Over the years, they fed more than twenty feral cats. One of them stayed around their home for sixteen years. It remained completely feral: it never made a sound, never came close, and never allowed itself to become a pet. But it stayed.
That cat recently died. Now only one of the feral cats remains.
During nesting season, Blue Jays lined up at the cats' kibble dish to gather food for their young. They would not let another bird jump the line; each waited patiently for its turn.
During the long drought, the birdbath became one of the few reliable sources of fresh, safe water nearby. Michael kept it full, and cats, deer, squirrels, birds of all kinds, and turkeys learned they could always find water there.
These were the kinds of moments BJ loved. She was the person who answered a neighbor's call, carried food into the yard, and made room in her daily life for creatures that might never let her touch them. She did not need an animal to belong to her before deciding it deserved care.
BJ died a few years ago.
Michael calls her "the real Dr. Doolittle." Since losing her, he has tried to keep up with the life they cared for together.
In the summer, he goes through a 35-pound bag of birdseed each month, filling two feeders. The hummingbirds still return. Deer still move through the woods. Turkeys, woodpeckers, foxes, vultures, cats, and the occasional bear continue to turn an ordinary day into a story.
The work is practical and repetitive: carrying seed, filling feeders, keeping water available, and paying attention. Yet every routine belongs to a longer history. BJ once performed many of these small acts. Now Michael continues them.
He does not pretend he can take her place. In his own words, he is simply trying to keep up.
"I'm Doing This for Her"
The COOLFLY smart bird feeder has given Michael a new way to see what is happening across that familiar landscape. It captured the bear at the feeder, but the dramatic visitors are only one part of what interests him. What he values just as much are the birds behaving naturally when no one is standing close enough to disturb them.
Michael believes BJ would have loved that view.
"It would have been one of her joys to see the birds up that close, acting completely calm and natural, going about their life, live or even recorded," he said. "A lot of joy in a cool little gadget."
The nature lover in him would like to place a COOLFLY bird camera at the birdbath one day. A camera there could record the animals arriving, drinking, and moving on, all without a person standing close enough to disturb them.
The bird camera did not create the life in Michael's backyard, nor did it begin his connection with animals. It simply arrived late enough, yet just in time, to preserve some of what had always been there.
The first recording Michael shared with us showed a bear. But what made him keep writing was the chance to remember BJ: Egor on the deck banister, the adult vultures shielding their young, the fox bringing her kits, the feral cat that stayed for sixteen years, and the food and fresh water Michael still makes sure are there for the animals.
Michael believes BJ would have liked knowing that people who love animals were interested in her life with them. That is why he is willing to let others read these memories.
In eight acres of woods, animals are always arriving and disappearing. Some return with the seasons. Some find their way back from half a mile away.
Some come back with their families.