Tag: brown bear photo

Brown Bear

Brown Bear Sow

Brown Bear Takes a Nap Next to Us

Brown Bear Takes a Break

I was with a few others photographing this female brown bear while she was fishing. The silver salmon run hadn’t begun yet at Silver Salmon Creek, but that didn’t stop her from giving it a try.  She caught a starry flounder and then, after a while, a silver salmon.  A larger male bear was also fishing and catching nothing. When she caught the salmon he chased her for several minutes and she was holding onto the fish so hard that one or both ends fell to the ground.  That caused the male to stop.  After the chase she walked toward us.  She kept coming and finally stopped and plopped down not far from our feet.

She had a reputation as a very good fisher.  She also had a rep that wasn’t as nice.  She abandoned her year-old cub not long before this.  We would see it on occasion and hoped and prayed it would make it to and through hibernation.

Brown Bear

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Bear); Lake Clark National Park

Photo of large male brown bear.
“The Other Boars just Call Him Sir!”

When I look at this boar I think of Jim Croce’s great song, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”  This guy was the biggest male brown bear I saw in my week at Silver Salmon Creek.  Note the size of his shoulders and chest compared to the boar that was following the sow and cub in my last post.  He has an old scar above his right eye.

Brown Bear

Ever-Protective Mother Bears, Lake Clark National Park

In the last post I showed a mother brown bear who I said looked concerned.  I had reason to think she looked concerned because of what I saw outside the frame of the image.  She and her cub were being followed by a boar.  Here’s a photo of her cub.  It doesn’t look the least concerned.  In fact, it looks happy or at least content.

Photo of brown bear cub.
Not a Care in the World

Mom is getting increasingly concerned though. The male bear has gained some ground on them thanks to the cub’s dawdling.  She’s starting to foam at the mouth which bears do when they get agitated.

Photo of sow brown bear.
Getting More Concerned

The cub sees that mom is looking a bit agitated so it looks around to see what’s going on.  It doesn’t like what it sees.

Photo of brown bear cub.
“Uh Oh; Mom!”

At this point mom decided a stroll along the beach wasn’t a good idea and she and her cub picked up the pace and headed inland.  Fortunately, the boar didn’t follow them.

Photo of big male brown bear.
“Don’t Mess with Me!”

This guy wasn’t the biggest boar I saw at Silver Salmon Creek, but he’s still pretty muscular.  I wouldn’t want him following me.  In human terms I’d guess him to be about a 16 to 18 year teenager.  He still has that kind of “dog-like” head.  It will get much wider.  Also, note how short his coat is compared to mom and her cub.  These photos were taken the last week in July.  By then the males have lost most or all of their winter coats.

Brown Bear

Brown Bear at Silver Salmon Creek

Photo of female brown bear walking along the beach.
A Walk on the Beach

Here’s another photo from my trip to the Silver Salmon Creek area of Lake Clark National Park.    This is a female with a one-year old cub walking behind her out of the frame.

One of the things I like about photographing wildlife is that you get to observe and record how they act in, and react to, the world around them.   You never know when something unusual will happen, but you need to be ready when, and if, it happens.

There is also a boar walking behind them.  Boars kill cubs.  Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but she looks concerned to me.  She looked even more concerned shortly after this photo was taken.

Brown Bear

Brown Bear, Lake Clark National Park

Photo of a one year old brown bear.
Young Brown Bear Walks the Beach.

The summer before I started this blog I took a trip to Alaska to photograph brown bears.  There are several options to choose from when deciding where to photograph brown bears in Alaska.  I finally decided to go to the Silver Salmon Creek Lodge at Silver Salmon Creek in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.   Until I started doing my research I hadn’t even heard of Lake Clark.  It turns out that it is the fourth-largest national park if you include the preserve lands (where hunting is allowed).  You get there by bush plane.  It’s about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.  The accommodations at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge are very nice.  For more on the lodge click here.

When we arrived the staff told us it hadn’t stopped raining for 30-some days.  It would keep raining 24/7 until the last of my five full days there.   That didn’t stop the shooting though.  The above photo was taken on that last day.