Tag: 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

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.

Grizzly Bear

A Grizzly Hunts for Food, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a grizzly bear.
A Grizzly Feeds Near Soda Butte Creek

This young grizzly is the same individual I photographed yesterday.  It was looking for food by overturning rocks and turning over clumps of dirt.  While what it was finding will keep this bear going, it would really benefit by finding some meat.  It’s eyes don’t look sad anymore.  It’s looking at me.  Hmmm.

It has been raining and snowing for the past few days.  Today it snowed lightly almost all day in the park and caused me some focusing problems.  The snow stuck to vegetation, but melted quickly when it hit dirt and asphalt.  The forecast is for more of the same.

Grizzly Bear

Grizzly Bear, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a grizzly bear.
Spring Grizzlies Are Hungry Grizzlies.

This is the only grizzly so far that has been close enough to photograph on this trip to Yellowstone.  It’s a young bear and when I look at its eyes it seems sad.

Those aren’t insects flying around the bear.  It’s snow.  We’ve had rain, hail and snow the past couple of days.  That’s not unusual this time of year.

There’s no time to cull photos.  This is the first one I saw that looked OK.