Kate Bosworth finds bear swimming in her pool

Kate Bosworth feels lucky to be alive after a close encounter with a bear outside her Los Angeles home.

The actress was lounging by her pool over the summer when the beast decided to climb over a fence and take a dip.

Kate showed off footage of the uninvited guest swimming during an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan on Monday (23Dec19).

"He just came around the corner... and I was literally just sitting there," she said, revealing she actually challenged the intruder at one point.

"He was trying to bite the tube to the vacuum in my pool and I was like, 'Hey, I don't wanna replace that', and he looked at me and got out of the pool."

Bears are such regulars in Bosworth's neighbourhood there's a watch group that has been set up just to monitor their comings and goings.

"They're literally known as the neighbourhood bears," she explains. "We have, like, a Neighbourhood Watch, where all the neighbours are, like, texting: 'Hey, the bear's by your house, the bear's in your trash...' No one saw that one (who got into my pool)."

But the fearless Superman Returns star admits she has got to know the bear that popped in for a dip in her pool, adding, "He's been friendly thus far... I've known this bear since he was a little cub. There's actually two of them... I saw the cubs jump in our pool when they were, like, super small."