It’s Venus, just shining away. Star light, star bright: What do you say when it’s not first star I see tonight, but last star I see in the morning?

I’m scanning the treeline at the far edge of the field for bears. According to the U.S. National Park Service, black bears are most active at dusk and dawn, but deer are more likely visitors to the backyard at first light, tripping along singly or in groups of does and fawns, each heading for whatever so-called deer-resistant flowering plant she’s developed a taste for lately.

“Every part of this plant is toxic,” cautioned the seed packet of the perennial sweet pea that now overwhelms a trellis in my garden.

Unable to read this warning, deer have browsed on all the flowering stems they can reach, and this isn’t the only poisonous plant they’ll sample.

Why would deer eat poisonous plants?

“Maybe they do it to get high,” my friend Cherie speculates.

I once saw a flock of birds perched precariously along the top rail of a fence, flapping their wings and whooping it up, drunk on fermented berries. A predilection for altered consciousness may not be limited to humans.

Black bears, on the other hand, have shown no interest in my flower garden, and, to the best of my knowledge, consciousness alteration is not on their agenda.

No, garbage is what they crave. Getting into diner garbage is their game.

No one would care if they’d just do it neatly, tidying up after themselves and putting what they don’t want — plastic spoons and forks, paper cups and napkins, straws and lemon wedges — back into the dumpster. Instead, they drag bags of trash all over the neighborhood, rip them up and leave what they don’t want for the crows to fight over.

It’s not just diner food they’re after. Black bears are not picky eaters, nor are they snobs; given half a chance, they’ll get into anyone’s garbage, and devise ways to steal campers’ carefully stored food hoards. Failing that, they’ll just knock over a few bird feeders and eat the seeds. They’re worse than squirrels. Bears don’t need to be as clever at raiding bird feeders as squirrels because they’re bigger and stronger.

Looking out the window this morning, I don’t see the black bear I was watching a few evenings ago. Black bears are active at dusk and dawn; it was dusk when I saw the bear at the treeline at the verge of the field.

At first I couldn’t tell for sure that what I saw lying in the tall grass between a big bush and a young pine tree was a bear. It was doubtless an animal, I reckoned, and what animal, other than a bear, would have such black and glossy fur?

I got my cell phone, took a picture of the shape and blew it up, but still I couldn’t identify it. Whatever it was remained still. At last its head rose up above the grass and weeds. I took another picture. Yes. Definitely a bear! It lay back down and remained immobile for so long I was afraid it was hurt or ill. Or possibly it was waiting until nightfall, to head on over to the diner dumpster undetected and, with luck, find some leftover blueberry pie. Who could blame a bear for dreaming of blueberry pie?

I kept watch. In the gathering darkness the bear did not move again, and finally I could no longer make out its shape. The black bear had become invisible in the night.

The next morning I called the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and I spoke with a local ranger. I told him I was worried that the bear might have been hit by a car or otherwise injured. He said that the field was a popular spot for dog walkers; he was concerned about the presence of a bear.

Two DEC wildlife officers came. They didn’t find the bear, but did identify several nearby garbage stashes among the trees near the Ausable River, and they admonished neighborhood businesses and residents to electrify their dumpsters or otherwise safeguard garbage against bears.

That night a bear — the same bear? — knocked over our garbage can.

Have a good week.

(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the News since 1996.)