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.

Black Bear

The Best Place to Find Black Bears in Yellowstone National Park

Photo of black bear feeding on grass.
The Salad Days of Early May

The best area to find black bears Yellowstone, at least in the spring, is between Tower Junction and Tower Falls.   There is a small lake along the road in that area called Rainy Lake.  Next to the lake is a large meadow which bears use for grazing.  This young bear was in the meadow a lot last May.  Pay special attention to the stretch between the lake and Calcite Springs Overlook.

Pronghorn

Pronghorn Doe and Fawn, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of pringhorn doe nursing her fawn.
Feeding Time

This pronghorn mom and her two babies made a lot of visitors happy by staying between the Roosevelt Arch and the entrance station in late May.  I spent a lot of time observing her and her two fawns.

During the time I observed her, she kept the fawns well-separated except on one occasion.  I wonder if this is to minimize a predator getting them both.  She would visit each one every couple of hours and let them feed for a few minutes and then they would lie down again in a new spot until she returned.  They usually stayed perfectly still, but I saw one of them move once.  Movement like that can get a young ungulate killed I would think.  Each morning I would check to see if they were both there.  They were still there when I left the Park on June 1.

I wondered if the mother made a good choice in keeping them where she did.  I think so.  It’s a rectangular area bordered by roads on all four sides and by buildings on two sides.  There is a lot of human activity around there all day.  Maybe not as safe at night, but “safe” is a relative term in the pronghorn world.

Pronghorn

Where to See Pronghorns in Yellowstone National Park

Photo of pronghorn.
A pronghorn buck walks along a ridge in the Slough Creek Area.

Yellowstone has 200 to 300 pronghorns.  They only exist in the Park in its northern range.  They spend winters in the Gardiner Basin and some, but not all, migrate from there to spend summers at higher elevations in the Park as far as the Lamar Valley.

One way to see them is to drive the Old Yellowstone Trail in the Gardiner Basin.  Start at the Park’s Roosevelt Arch and drive north around the west side of the Gardiner school and then continue on the gravel road until you get to the boat launch just before the bridge that crosses the Yellowstone River.  At that point you can either turn around and head back the way you came or you can cross the bridge, get on Highway 89,  and drive at highway speed back to Gardiner.  Pronghorn are here year round.  Note to photographers:  For most of this route the land looks to be in bad shape vegetation-wise, but gets better at the north end.  By the way, when you get back to the Roosevelt Arch look for pronghorn in that half mile or so between the Arch and the entrance booth.

The other option is to head for the Lamar Valley and look for them any place between Mammoth and the Lamar Valley that has open terrain.  I usually take a detour and drive the road to the Slough Creek Campground because I often see a few pronghorn there.  By the time you get to the confluence where Soda Butte Creek joins the Lamar River you will have covered about all the pronghorn habitat that can be seen from a vehicle.   The area from Mammoth to the Lamar Valley is summer range only.

Pronghorn

Another Wounded Pronghorn at Yellowstone?

Photo of a pronghorn buck with a possible wound.
Pronghorn Buck; Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park

Here’s a pronghorn buck that I also saw and photographed last May.  It was in the Slough Creek area.  It’s also missing a chunk of hair at the top of the shoulders.  It also seems to be missing some flesh, but it’s hard to be certain because of the angle of view.  The doe in the previous posts provided a good view of her wound because she was  walking downhill.  The only point of posting this image is that it is the second pronghorn I saw in May that seems to have a wound in about the same place.  I find that interesting.  Was it a golden eagle?  I don’t know, but it’s possible.