Alaska Brown Bears - Day 5

 

Day 5 – Wed July 29

Started off the morning, getting up early, as there were already 3 bears on the beach shortly after sunrise.  

The first bear we saw was a youngster and he left pretty quick after we got there, passing by us and heading in the direction we had just come from.  We could see that there was a sow and cub heading into the main river area and think that maybe the young bear didn't want to deal with a protective mom this early in the morning.

First bear of the morning but he didn't stick around long

In just a matter of minutes there were three different mama bears heading our way, each with a single cub tagging along side them. Two of the cubs were spring cubs and the third was at least 2 years old now.  We took our spots along the river again, this time making sure we would have much better light working in our favor than we'd had the afternoon before.

Each set of bears reached the river and looked around,  but none of the them seemed to be too serious about fishing yet this morning and mostly seemed content with eating grass and wandering up and down the river giving halfhearted attempts at fishing.  We just sat there enjoying the small parade going past us as the bears would slowly head up the river and out of site.  

The soon to be "bullies" showed up first

They slowly crossed the river looking around but not really fishing

They made one last pass before heading up river and out of site for a while

The second sow and cub of the morning.  She would turn out to be the most dominant

They were confident as they approached the river

Mama spent a little time looking for fish, but didn't see any she liked I guess.  The cub was more interested in watching us.

At one point, a young sow and her cub were just getting to the river to the left of us, when the sow that had passed us earlier with the older cub started coming back downstream.  The two year old cub must have been feeling his oats this morning because he locked eyes with the young mom and cub and started to hurry down the river in their direction, and the young sow and cub got scared to took off running the back the way they came from.  The older cub seemed pretty proud of himself and then him and the mama bear went to check out the area they'd just chased the other two away from.  They spent a lot of time sniffing every rock and blade of grass the other two had touched, and reminded me of how dogs act when they can smell another dog in their area.

Young sow and her spring cub

She seemed the most cautious of the three mamas this morning

She suddenly had to scratch that itch

The bullie cub saw the sow and her cub as she scratched on the rocks

After looking like he might chase them, he slowed down and just stared as they ran off

Now looking back up river, we saw the first sow and her spring cub heading down the river in our direction again.  Now it was the bullies turn to have the tables turned on them.  The bully sow stood on her hind legs staring up the river at the two coming her way and watched them for a few minutes like that.  He cub started to get nervous too and at one point stood up on his hind legs as well, only he was looking everywhere but up river.  LOL  Now these two decided they'd better get out of there and they quickly left the river bank, away from the two they had chased off just 10 minutes before.  It was funny to see how fast the tide had changed and to watch the hierarchy between the bears play out in front of us like that.  It was obvious that out of the three mama bears in the meadow this morning, this one headed our was was the dominant one.

He come the dominant sow and her cub again

The bullies suddenly don't seem so sure of themselves

The smell of victory - or the smell of the scared bears.  Depends on  your perspective.

The new dominant mama and her very active and brave young’un pranced around, sniffing the grass that the others had just vacated, and then wandered back and forth kind of watching to make sure the area was now theirs…. Not that they did any fishing or anything exciting with it now that everyone had been scared away.  They wandered around for a while and then slowly drifted off into the high grass.

The mama and cub spent quite a bit of time wandering around, eating grass but never fished

After a short break of not much happening we then saw a series of individual bears come down the river, walking past us and watching the river but not really seeing any salmon in there, they headed into the meadow to eat grass.   It was only just as we thought we might head back to the boat that a bigger bear started down the river towards us, and then proceeded to fish the river about 10 feet in front of us for the next 30 minutes.  He splashed up and down the deep part of the river in front of us, getting up on his back legs to get a better view of the fish and once again splashing around like crazy trying to catch them.  He managed to finally catch one and took it up on the far bank to devour the entire fish.  The funny part was just as he took his last bite he saw another salmon flash by and he was racing into the river splashing around again trying to grab it before he probably swallowed the last of the first fish.   When he missed, he climbed back out of the river and want over to make sure he had indeed finished the first one off… before getting back in the river and starting the whole dance all over again.  It made for some great photos ops and even got a little video footage of him splashing around.

Solo bear time

Watching for fish but didn't see any he liked

Now this bear has a hankering for some salmon

He decided he wasn't going to mess around and got busy right away

See how easy that was?

Gotta get high to see through the glare of the water

He saw it, but just didn't catch it

Once he decided he was tired and wasn’t going to catch anything else… he headed back up the river and we went back to the boat for lunch.

Went back to the land after a nice break and found 4 bear there…. Two totally sleeping away in the heat of the afternoon.  We watched a couple of other bears come and go right past us, all the while watching the river but not seeing enough fish to catch their interest I guess and on they went.  Not a whole lot happened this evening with the bears….  Although we had a couple of really close passes by younger bears as they just kept moving around us, teasing us with the idea we might get another fishing exhibition.  As the sun went down behind the mountain we decided to call it a day and headed back toward the pick-up spot for the boat… passing 4 bear on the way…. Two sleeping and two just eating grass.   By now that has become so common a site that we barely even paid attention to them.   We’re hoping for cooler weather tomorrow which hopefully will leave the bears with more energy than they showed us today. 

Alaska Brown Bears - Day 4

Day 4 – Tue July 28 - Geographic Harbor

The morning started off with being woken up and told there was a wolf walking along the shoreline.  The boat was anchored a little too far into the bay to really get any kind of great photos of the wolf so we all just sat around the table watching as it slowly worked its way along the shore.  It was the first time I think I’ve seen a wolf in the wild so it was kind of exciting to just get to watch it.  After about 20 minutes we noticed that there was a bear in the tall grass ahead of where the wolf was heading and started to wonder what was going to happen when the wolf finally saw it. 

The wolf eventually noticed the bear as he got a lot closer to it, and it paused for a minute or two trying to decide what to do.  The bear was busy eating grass and had his back to the shore, and I think the wolf decided he could sneak past if he got closer to the water and decided to go for it.  Sadly the wolf must have made just enough noise to catch the bear’s attention and the bear spun around to see what was behind him, and they both froze for a second before the wolf decided he was going to kick it into another gear, which made the bear give chase and the race was on!   Luckily it was early morning and still kind of cold out and the wolf had warmed up with a much longer walk than the bear had taken …. So he was able to speed past and put some distance between the two of them after a short but exciting case to watch.  I really wish we hadn’t been 500 yards away and I could have gotten better photos of it.  Here are a few photos to give you an idea of what it was like though. 

 

Wolf on a morning stroll

Oops, made a bit too much noise

The chase was on

Just before the bear gave up

We could only see two bears in the area we planned to head to so far this morning, so before heading to shore we opted for a skiff ride around the bay and through some of the small rock outcrops.  During the ride we spotted another bear on one of the small islands, at first walking along the rocks but then working his way up the hill to go get some berries. We slowed down and watched the bear for a few minutes before it disappeared out of site and so continued on, passing some very cool scenery.  There were cliff walls that went straight up with trees poking out here and there. It almost had a Jurassic Park kind of feel to it.  We also saw a couple of big sea otters that just refused to pose for photos and then turned a corner to find a rock covered in Gulls.  It actually made for a nice quick photo with the reflections they were casting on the calm water.  After a fun ride in and out of all the side channels, we went back to the boat to get ready to head to shore. 

Once we had all our gear and put on our chest waders, we headed out and could see that things had already gotten a lot busier around the river.  We picked out a spot that we would camp out on for the morning and headed that way.  As we got closer to that spot we could see a huge bear that was sleeping in the grass just on the other side of the river from us, and saw a smaller bear working its way down stream in our direction.  The smaller bear was watching the big one, who slowly got up and started staring at it intently.  This seemed to make the smaller bear a bit nervous and it would cast its gaze our way and then back at the big bear…. Every once in a while, taking a quick look in the river to see how many salmon might be close by.  You could see that the bear was a little too nervous to dive in with that huge bear so close by, and then it decided it might like to pass by, much closer to us to put as much room between the two of them.  The bear got about 6 feet away as it walked past, and even took a second to look each of us in the eye, sniffing the entire way, before heading off into the meadow behind us.  The big bear just kind of stood there, moving his head side to side to make sure no one else was encroaching on his area before going to get a drink of water and then laying back down in the grass.

The big bear stood up to let the smaller bear know this was his spot

She was watching him and the river while making her way towards us

This was about the time she decided to leave the river to the big boy

Nothing seemed to happen for a little while other than bears moving around in the meadow, happily grazing on the grass there.  Just when it seemed this big bear might keep all the other bears away from us…. He got up and decided to take a stroll through the river, looked to see if he could see any fish and when there were none, he wandered off into the meadow himself.   No sooner did he clear out than that first bear circled back behind us to take a much closer look at the river.  She didn’t really spot anything from the river’s edge so she climbed down into the river and did a bit of snorkeling, but must not have seen any as she never really gave chase to anything nor came up with a fish in her mouth.   She slowly worked her way up the river to where there was a small waterfall and splashed around up there for a bit.  We couldn’t see well enough to know if she was catching fish but that spot turned out to be very popular with a number of bears as the day wore on.

Next up was a bigger male working his way towards us.  He would turn out to be the best fishing bear we saw the entire trip.  He certainly didn’t waste too much time jumping into the river and splashing around at everything that moved.  He would spin in circles, swatting at fish, lunging head first into the water and coming up empty, he tried to push them to the side of the pool he was standing in and pin them against the wall…  and at first seemed to really just not have a clue on how to catch one.   It seemed like he carried on like that for at least 20 minutes, coming up empty over and over again, and then finally with a huge lunge, he stuck his head under water and came up with a really nice-looking fish.

Chasing a salmon

His first catch

By this time another group of photographers had shown up and were on the other side of the river from us, and the bear looked at them, and then us, with this big fish hanging in his mouth and them seemed to decide he’s just take the fish to a shallow part of the river and eat it there.  He seemed to inhale that fish and ate the entire thing in 4 of 5 bites and was right back at it with the fishing.  This time he came up with his second fish after about 3 minutes, and once again looked at that other group of photographers and then us, and decided we looked least likely to take his fish so he came up on the shore right in front of us to once again make quick work of the fish.  He was so close you could hear all the bones crunching with every bite he took, which reminded you just how powerful these bears are.

Once again, he jumped into the river and this time had his next fish in under 2 minutes, or so it seemed.  He didn’t hesitate at all, and came right up on the shore in front of us, moving even further away from the river this time and went to town on his latest catch.  We had an excellent view of just how fast a bear and eat a huge salmon.  Lol

This time he seemed to take his time before climbing back into the river, and he kind of looked around but didn’t seem nearly as hungry anymore nor as frantic to catch another fish.  He splashed around a little bit, but not with the same energy as earlier, and started to wander up the river now.  I think he decided he was full enough for now and then kind of wandered off.  We were given a great show for sure!

By the time we were done for the day, we had seen at least 14 bears, and about half of those coming so much closer to us than I had expected before this trip started.  It was a great day but now we were hungry and it was time to head back to the boat for another amazing meal. 

Alaska Brown Bears - Day 3

Day 3 – Mon July 27, 2020

The engine fired up at 5:50am and it was time to cross Shelikof Straight. The open ocean was the roughest water of the trip so far, but still nothing compared to the Drake straight on the trip to Antarctica last December.  It was slow going and took us about 5 hours to cross the straight and finally we pulled into Hallo Bay.  This is an area with very unpredictable winds and weather and we were warned that we might not be able to get into the bay, but luck was on our side today, as the weather was beautiful and almost TOO hot really. 

Hallo Glacier coming down off the mountain made for a very cool backdrop against the beach and open meadows beyond.  There was one other boat in the bay when we pulled in and we spotted a mama bear and 3 cubs down near their boat so we decided to head up the beach away from them and over the berm into the open meadow beyond.  After a short hike, we spotted another mama bear and her cub off in the distance, near a stream that crossed the open area.  When we got to the stream and started to walk along the banks, we passed over a lot of bear track including one set of prints that were easily the size of a big dinner plate.  It was hard to miss that you were certainly in bear country now…. Even if you hadn’t already spotted 5 of them before you’d been on land a couple of minutes.

We continued walking down the bank of the stream and lost sight of the sow and her cub.  They must have wandered off into the tall grass on the other side of the river to escape the heat.  We kept walking through and as we came to the top of a small hill, we saw yet another mama bear with cubs, this one had three yearlings with her.   A little behind those 4 was also another bear… most likely an adolescent that had been sent off on his own in the last year or so.

We decided to head down and cross the river and work our way to the far side of the mama bear and her cubs, to get the sun to our back for a better chance at good photos.  This also gave us a chance to make sure all the bears could see us and get used to our presence and we could get a read on how they were going to react to us being there.  It quickly became apparent that the sow and her cubs couldn’t care less that we were there, but the adolescent bear got up and started moving away from us and crossed another stream so it had a little more distance between us.

We found a good spot and settled in to watch these 4… while keeping an eye on the bear across the river to make sure he didn’t decide to come back our way and squeeze us in between him and the mama bear.  The babies and mama just grazed away in the meadow barely even bothering to look up at us.  It was a hot day and after a while, a couple of cubs decided it was time for a water break and one decided even better, that it was time to just lay in the water for a bit to cool off.   The other cub stuck pretty close to mama the whole time and one of the two more adventurous cubs quickly joined them again, while the third continued to just do his own thing.   The guide told us he was the single boy cub and that the two females tended to stay closer to mom than he did.  

We got to watch one of the cubs begging to nurse and the mama bear just totally ignoring her, but she was persistent  and the more noise she made about wanting to nurse the closer the other two cubs got as well, and after a while the mama bear gave in, and brought the cubs closer to us before sitting up and looking right at us and then flopping back onto her back only to be pounced on by her cubs.  The three of them only fed for about 5 minutes before we realized all 4 of them had totally fallen asleep... the cubs right on top of mama. 

After about 20 minutes, mama bear woke up and wanted to get back to eating so she slowly rolled her way from under all that weight and managed to get out from under the cubs without waking them up, and she went back to eating while they just dozed away.   We got some of the best views and photos of her at this point as they were now only about 100-150 feet away from us.  We watched her for a while and then decided it was time to go looking for the other mama bear that had been on the beach with her spring cubs.   There were a few other bears that had also come into the meadow by now, but the 3 little ones would make for better photos.

We found them pretty much where we’d last seen them. All hanging out on the beach.  The three little cubs were much more playful than the older three we’d been watching for hours and they were running around a bit and playing …. And as mama walked up the beach toward us they had to run to keep up with her.  We didn’t get to watch them up close nearly as long as the other group, but it was still fun to see the smaller cubs and watch how different they were when interacting with each other. 

They slowly moved away from us and now we could see the other three cubs finally wake up again after about an hour long nap.  We just sat on top of the berm and watched all the bear in the meadow for her for a while before deciding to call it a day and head back to the boat.  

The bear sightings weren’t over just year though as we crossed paths with one more bear as we walked down the beach.  This one was just sound asleep amongst the drift wood and we almost walked right past without even noticing it.  This one was pretty sleepy from the heat and when hearing us, barely had the energy to lift its head to look at us a couple of times and lay right back down to go back to sleep.

First view of the meadow after coming over the berm from the beach

First river we crossed and the view beyond

Another view of the meadow

First view of the mama bear and her three cubs we would watch for hours

Was so hot out, this cub needed to take a dip in the river to cool off

Three spring cubs tryin to keep up with their mama - you can see the heat shimmering

Cubs finally caught up to mama

Alaska Brown Bears - Day 2

Day 2 – Sun July 26

We get on the boat today, but we’re not due to be picked up until 2pm so we decided to walk to breakfast at one of the only breakfast places open on Kodiak.  The place is called King’s Diner and they actually had a really good breakfast menu.  I went for Pancakes, eggs and sausage which you really can’t go wrong with and it was good breakfast.  On the way back to hotel we spotted a sporting goods shop and each of us needed a couple of things for the trip so we stopped in there really quick.  I bought a mosquito net for my head as I was told they can get really bad in some of the marshland we’ll be visiting and it’s better to have one and not need it, than the other way around for sure!  Now we just had to wait to get picked up so we headed back to the hotel, watched some TV until we had to check out, and then all just sat in the lobby chatting until we were picked up and taken to the boat.  We unloaded all our bag, got a tour and safety talk about the boat and then it was time to get going.  We weren’t going to make it all the way to the first landing spot today but we did have a long way to travel so just sat back, had some snacks and then watched whales, otters and eagles along the way.  It was really smooth sailing and when we made it to the stopping point for the night, the captain anchored the boat and then we were fed what was going to turn out to be the first of many very tasty meals on this trip.  I know I’m going to pay for all the food when I get back home, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy the week and not worry about it.  I know I’ll regret that later. LOL

The skies looked really good as sunset finally started to get closer, and it looked like there might be an epic sunset, but it just teased us for a while before fizzling out at the last minute.  I still snapped a few shots that I thought looked really nice anyway before everyone called it a night.  Tomorrow morning is going to be an early wake up to try to make it across the straight with the tides in our favor.  I think the captain plans on starting the engines at 5:45am and it will be hard to sleep once that big engine kicks back on.

First of many fin whales we saw

Just a view across the water

Big pod of fin whales moved along with us for a while - might have been 6 or 7 of them

Here you can see 4 at once

Stranded Ship on the beach

The best the sunset got tonight

Alaska Brown Bears - Day 1

Day 1 – Sat July 25

Today is a full day of travel, having to catch a flight from Seattle to Anchorage and then after about a 1.5-hour layover, flying from Anchorage to Kodiak.  Before the trip ever got started though, I had to go get a test for COVID in order to be allowed into the state of Alaska without having to quarantine for my entire time there.  The test had to be done within 72 hours of arriving in Alaska and with how slow some of the testing sites have been in getting results back, I was a little nervous that I might run into a roadblock there. Luckily, I found a location that told me they can get rapid results back to me in about 24-48 hours so I went and got tested and then waited to get my results.   I wasn’t too worried since I have been socially isolating since March and really only came into contact with anyone at the grocery store or the gas station.  I got my negative results back on Friday and was good to go!

The flights were pretty smooth and the only real hiccup on the trip was the process to verify that I’d been tested and my test results were negative.  There was a long line as everyone arriving in Anchorage had to go through this process, and I was a little worried I could miss my next flight since it looked like it was moving super slow.  Luckily one of the people directing everyone where to go, told me she could check me in since I was catching a connecting flight and didn’t have all day to stand in line. 

The flight to Kodiak was really short. In fact, I think we hit cruising altitude and only stayed up there for 10 minutes before starting our decent into what had to be the smallest airport I’ve ever been to.  The baggage claim is in the same room as the ticket counter and the line for security and everyone was kind of stuffed in there all at one.  Those of us waiting for bags, and people trying to get out of town on the plane we’d just arrived in.  If you’re claustrophobic, you’d not have had a good time waiting for your bags.

The next problem with a small place like this, is that there is almost no taxi service either.  Getting a cab to go to the hotel took a lot longer than expected since there were only a few cars servicing the island it seemed, but since we weren’t in a rush we just hung out until the owner of the cab company finally came and picked us up himself.  He was a funny guy and kept us entertained all the way into town.

We got all checked in, and then walked around a bit.  There are only a few places open for food right now, so we grabbed a quick dinner at one of them, and then wandered around one of the marinas before calling it a night.

Ticket Counter after airport emptied out

Looking at baggage claim

View of the airport parking - looking right

View of the airport parking - looking left

One of the marinas in town

Lots of fishing boats here