Things that go bump in the night

"From Ghoulies and Ghoosties, long-leggetty Beasties, and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord, deliver us!"

English poet Alfred Noyes, 1909

 I obviously spend a lot of time outside by myself in the dark, and on occasion I have heard "bumps in the night" that make me sit up and look around.  Sometimes (if I'm not going to ruin an exposure) I will turn on my headlamp and scan for eye reflections.  My usual conclusion (i.e., wishful thinking) is that it is a band of elk or deer passing through the property, and there is sometimes evidence of that.

However,  it is not always deer looking for an unprotected garden or heading to the Rio for a drink.  Yesterday I traveled back to Santa Fe to view the annular eclipse from my backyard, which is conveniently within the zone of annularity.  Late that night I received an alert from the security camera on my back porch in Creede and saw this:

My reasoning has always been that a bear will sense my presence (and there are usually glowing LEDs and tablets, etc, to reinforce that) and go elsewhere.  On the other hand, one neighbor had to shoot a bear that came in through a bedroom window, and another defended himself with a picnic cooler by bashing the bear in the face during a late-night back-porch encounter.

So, what to do? I'm still pondering that question.