Category: Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear, Yellowstone National Park

A mother grizzly bear walks through the south end of Swan Lake Flat.
A mother grizzly walks through sage.

A well-known place in Yellowstone to look for grizzlies is a large open area called Swan Lake Flat.  It is especially good for seeing grizzly sows with cubs.  I have often seen grizzlies there, but they have always been too far away for good photos.

In May 2015 I got lucky.  I was approaching the flat from the south when I saw a flash of brown out of the corner of my eye.  I stopped and saw a mother grizzly with two two year old cubs walking parallel to the road about 75 yards away.   Unfortunately, they were heading in the opposite direction.  By the time I got the car turned around they had disappeared into some trees.  I drove to a spot that looked like it would be a good place to wait for them and got ready.

As luck would have it, after a minute or two I noticed that there was a very young elk calf between me and where I hoped the bears would pass.  It was standing in a little clump of trees.  Hmm.  Bears love elk calves.  In fact, grizzlies and black bears kill about 50% of the calf crop each year.  What if they see/smell the calf and charge toward it (and me)?  That’s as far as I got in my thinking when the bears came into view.  They didn’t detect the calf and kept going.  The calf got to live another day and I got my photo.

 

Grizzly Bear

Young Grizzly Bear, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a young grizzly bear.
Play Time Is Over

This is a two-and-a-half year old female.  She was just just given her walking papers by her mom.  This is normal for grizzly bears.  This happens to black bear cubs at age one-and-a-half.

She was very nervous, constantly looking over her shoulder.  Mom was no longer there to protect her and she had killed an elk calf which lay nearby and which other predators, including bigger bears, could smell.

Finding the calf shows she has learned an important skill.  I think she’ll do okay surviving on her own.

Coyote, Grizzly Bear, Other Bird, Pronghorn

My 10 Favorite Wildlife Photos of 2012

About a year ago I posted a blog with my 10 favorite wildlife photos from 2011.  Here are my 10 favorites for 2012.  Most of this year’s photos are from Yellowstone.

Photo of a female red fox with her kits.
Mom and the Kids

Finding and photographing this red fox vixen and her two kits was the best part of my trip to Yellowstone last spring.

Photo of red fox kits at play.
Fox Kits at Play

Baby animals are usually photogenic and these two certainly were.

Photo of pringhorn doe nursing her fawn.
Feeding Time

While on the subject of baby animals, this doe pronghorn kept her two fawns right around the Roosevelt Arch for a week or more.  They stopped a lot of cars.

Photo of a young grizzly bear.
A Grizzly Daydreams

This grizzly bear spent several days in May on the slopes above Yellowstone’s Soda Butte Creek feeding on grass, roots and whatever other vegetative material grizzlies feed on in the spring.

Photo of a grizzly bear.
Sad Looking Young Grizzly

I spent a fair amount of time photographing this bear.  It often looked sad to me.  I think it was a young bear and perhaps it was its first spring without its mother.

Photo of a mountain bluebird on a sage plant.
Mountain Bluebird on Sage

I always see mountain bluebirds in Yellowstone in the spring, but until this past May I’ve never really had any good opportunities to photograph them.  They seem to be constantly on the move.  This May was different.  They hung around.

Photo of a sandhill crane standing in a patch of sage.
A sandhill crane hunts in the sage.

There are always some sandhill cranes in Yellowstone in the nesting season.  They usually tend to be far off though.  You often hear them calling before you even spot them.  I was lucky here.

Photo of a male yellow-headed blackbird singing for a mate.
Love-sick Yellow-headed Blackbird, Yellowstone National Park

I don’t recall  ever having seen a yellow-headed blackbird in Yellowstone before this spring.  This male was singing to attract a mate I assume.  I spotted him while driving the road to the Slough Creek Campground.

Photo of white-crowned sparrow.
White-crowned Sparrow, Point Reyes National Seashore

There are a lot of white-crowned sparrows in Point Reyes National Seashore in the winter.  This male saved what was otherwise an uneventful day.

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

Photo of a coyote staring at the camera.
Coyote Portrait

The coyotes I see in the ranching areas of Point Reyes are pretty wild.   By that I mean they don’t stick around when they see a human.  This individual was different.  He was comfortable with my photographing him.  He may have previously lived in an area with heavy human recreation use.

Point Reyes is my local Yellowstone.  It has a wide variety of wildlife considering where it is located.  No bison or moose, but it has elk and deer.  No wolves or bears, but it has coyotes, bobcats, badgers and one or more mountain lions.  You’ll see elk as easily as in Yellowstone and deer more easily.   You’ll see coyotes as easily as in Yellowstone and bobcats much more easily.

Well, that’s it.  My 10 favorites for 2012.  If you’d like to see my 10 favorites for 2011 click here.

Grizzly Bear

Popular Grizzly Cub Killed by Car, Grand Teton National Park

Photo of a one year old grizzly cub.
Brownie’s Last Days

I photographed this 1 and 1/2 year old cub on three or more occasions in early June of this year.  Locals had named it “Brownie.”  Each time the cub was between 100 and 200 yards from the road near Pilgrim Creek.  Unfortunately, it’s almost certain that this is the same cub that was killed by a car on June 21st.  For two articles about the accident, click here.

This is one of 399’s cubs.  She is famous for her habit of staying near roads and people, at least when she has cubs.  She is also famous for producing triplets, which is rare.  I wrote about 399 and this cub previously and said that getting comfortable around roads and humans was not a good thing for cubs to learn.  You can read that story here.

One thing I want to point out about this photo is that it’s pretty easy to tell that this is a 1 and 1/2 year old cub.  Notice how long and narrow the face is.  It’s not much different in shape than the face of a German Shepard dog.  By the time a grizzly cub is one year older the face has changed a lot.   For a photo of a 2 and 1/2 year old cub whose face is noticeably wider, click here.  See the third photo.  The cub is on the right.  (Mom is still teaching junior the pecking order at dinner.   A couple of days later this cub got the boot from mom and a boar that came calling.)  For a photo of what the head of a really large grizzly looks like click here.   Notice how small the eyes appear in relation to the head.  Eyes grow little, if any, from birth.

Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Cub at Grand Teton National Park

Photo of 1.5 year old grizzly cub on its own.
Abandoned by Its Mother

I haven’t ever gone through Grand Teton on my way to or from Yellowstone, but I was leaning toward doing that on the way home this year when someone in Yellowstone told me of a spot to photograph a great gray owl.  That was all I needed to hear to make up my mind.  I didn’t find the owl, but this grizzly cub made up for it.

It is one of three cubs born to famous #399 a year and a half ago.  399 has become famous because of her habit of living with her cubs close to roads and humans.  Some believe she does this because boars are less likely to frequent such areas and thus the likelihood of a boar killing her cubs is lessened.  The downside to this is that her cubs can pick up the same habit and bears that are comfortable near humans and roads is not a good thing.  This cub is spending a lot of time close to the road at the intersection with Pilgrim Creek.

It’s not normal for a grizzly sow to give her cubs the boot at one year of age, but that’s what 399 does.  NPS says 399 was abandoned by her mom at that age and thus to 399 that’s what a mom does, I guess.  This cub’s chances of survival would seem to be lessened somewhat without the extra year of protection and education mom could provide.

Black Bear, Grizzly Bear, Pronghorn

Yellowstone’s Bears Have Disappeared

Well, not really.  It’s just that they’re not grazing on grass as much any more and thus not as easy to see.  Elk (and pronghorn and bighorn) are giving birth and the word is out.  Grass was OK when meat wasn’t readily available, but now that meat is available the bears don’t have to settle for grass.  They need the protein to survive.  As I was driving from Mammoth to Gardiner yesterday there was a traffic jam mid-way due to a black bear kill of an elk calf.  This can be unsettling when you experience it, but that’s nature and let’s not forget most of us eat meat and it’s not much different, except we rely mostly on others to do our bidding.

Photo of pronghorn doe nursing fawn.
Mom and Baby

I don’t have any photos of elk calves yet, but I saw this female pronghorn and her twins close to the Roosevelt Arch the past couple of days.  I’ve gotten attached to them from photographing them.  I hope they survive the next four days or so until then can keep up with mom.