Tag: lake clark national park

Brown Bear

Brown Bear Cubs, Alaska

Brown Bear Cubs, Lake Clark National Park
Are we fighting or dancing?

I was in Alaska recently.  I spent the first week of this month photographing brown bears in Lake Clark National Park.  If you’re interested in photographing brown bears, Lake Clark is a good place to go and Silver Salmon Creek Lodge (SSCL), where I stayed, offers excellent accommodations.  In fact, the lodge provides full services, including meals/lodging, flights to and from the lodge and a guide.  My guide, Jim, has an M.S. in Wildlife Biology and his thesis involved bears.  SSCL is already taking reservations for 2019, but I think it still has some openings for 2018.  The lodge is about 100 air miles southwest of Anchorage.    http://silversalmoncreek.com/

If you’re thinking of going, you may be wondering when is  the best time?  That depends. I’ve been there the first and last weeks of July.  My understanding of what happens there in June, July and August follows.

June.  June is mating season.  I understand most of the big boars leave the area by the end of June.  Also, the ones that remain into July have lost their luxuriant winter coats by the end of June, if not before.  What kinds of foregrounds and backgrounds will you have to photograph the bears in in June?  The bears will be feeding primarily on sedge grass, which I like to photograph them in.  They will also be feeding on razor clams when the tide is very low.  That’s another setting I like.

July.  It’s my understanding that the sows with cubs, at least spring cubs, don’t arrive until the big boars have left.  Boars kill and eat cubs.  So, if you want to photograph cubs, July is a good time.  When I was there this year most of the sows and all of the cubs still had their winter coats.  The foregrounds and backgrounds you will have will be the same as in June.

August.  In August, the silver salmon/coho start migrating up Silver Salmon Creek.  The bears will focus on eating as many of them as they can to fatten up for the long winter.  The big boars may return at this time, but you should check with the lodge on that (plus everything else I’ve said).  I don’t know what the color of the sedge grass is in August, but I’m guessing it would still be green.   I don’t think I need to describe the setting for the bears standing in the creek trying to catch salmon.  There are no falls, at least at the lower end of the creek, so don’t expect to photograph bears standing at the top of some falls with their mouths wide open catching jumping salmon, like McNeil Falls is famous for.  But you won’t have to fight with hordes of people either.

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.