Share your wildlife story behind the photo(s)

[NorthernFocus]

In another thread there were a couple of replies wherein people shared experiences with wildlife. I thought the stories were interesting. It occurred to me maybe a thread dedicated to telling such stories would be of interest. I'll kick it off with a story that I'll call "Buddy Bear".

I was shooting with two other photographers(both professionals) on a salmon stream in Katmai. One of them was very experienced lady who has spent time with coastal brown bears in Alaska every summer for 20 years. The other guy was on his first bear trip of this type, I'll call him "Newby". All of his previous bear experience had been in Yellowstone/Glacier shooting from roads. There are a couple of "rules" when shooting on these salmon streams. Always stick together in a group, stay far enough back from the stream to allow the bears space to walk down the bank, and make yourself look as big as possible when bears get close.

There were a couple of big, dominant male bears that visited this stream while we were there. They were both well over a thousand lbs. One day early in the trip one of those big guys scarfed down a dozen or so salmon then lay down for a nap about 100 yards from where we were set up. He was rolling on his back and into all sorts of humorous poses. Newby decided that he had to have some shots of the bear looking so goofy. We agreed to shift positions and Newby immediately headed down stream leaving the lady and me behind gathering our bags, etc. Rule 1 broken.

By the time we caught up with Newby he was set up right at the edge of the water on a little gravel bar in the middle of the creek and was firing away. Rule 2 broken. There were no other bears on the stream at the moment so we set up beside him. We were maybe four feet apart with me on the left, the lady in the middle and Newby on the right. There was about 10 feet of gravel to my left where the creek split around the little bar that we were on. All of us were on our knees or sitting. The bear was maybe 30-40 yards away on the other side of the creek.
1) Sleeping off what I call salmon hangover

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2) Waking up.

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So the bear finally woke up and walked right towards us stopping straight across the creek for a drink of water. At this point he's maybe 15-20 yards away.

3) A nice cool drink

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4)

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It can often be very frustrating trying to capture eye contact with these guys particularly with the big guys. They rarely look straight at you and when they do it is usually just a glance. So it's pretty typical to stay focused on the animal waiting for that glance to press the shutter. As I watched in through the lens I noticed that this guy kept looking just to my left and sort of downward. I lifted my head from behind the VF to see what he was looking at. Then I noticed there were dozens of fish in the creek between us and the bear. I thought this isn't good because he's already darn close and if he goes for the fish he's going to be right on top of us(because we broke Rule no.2). Well sure enough it was snack time and the bear jumped into the creek and grabbed a fish. By this time he was too close to shoot with anything but a WA and anyway Rule no.3 said we should have all been on our feet by now. But there we sat like the three little monkeys. Bears each have their own fishing style. Also some of them eat the fish on the spot while others carry their catch out onto the bank. We had watched this guy for a while and he preferred dry feet while eating. So when he caught the fish I was thinking "please mister bear go back across the creek to eat". Well if he had it wouldn't be much of a story.

So Mr. Bear comes on across the creek and parks himself right beside me. He wasn't within arms reach but I certainly could have touched him with a walking stick. With the bear this close but ignoring you it's a bit of a judgement call what to do. So far so good, he's ignoring you. If you stand up at this point he may see it as a threat. And dominant bears don't get where they are in life by backing down. So I sat there on my knees looking at his feet to avoid eye contact, pulled the safety pin from the bear spray, and pointed the nozzle toward the bear. He was so close I could hear bones crunching, flesh squishing, and his lips smacking as he ate the salmon. So far so good. I slowly turned my head to look at the lady who knows brown bear pretty well. She was watching the bear with a pretty serious but not really concerned look on her face. So I decided to watch her face and if her expression changed to concern I'd hit the trigger on the bear spray. So far so good. Though it was probably a couple of minutes it seemed like forever that we sat there listening to the crunching, squishing, smacking as the bear ate that fish. Then he simply walked back across the creek and off into the brush.

Well that was stupid. Broke all the rules but lived to tell about it. That evening we all had a good laugh about it. But at the time it wasn't a bit funny. We spent a week on that creek and it was the best bear shooting I've had before or since. At one time we counted 16 bears all around us on that creek. But the rest of the week after that incident every time that big male showed up I got chided that my "buddy" was coming.

 

[Woody Meristem]

Here's another bear tale -- Back in the late 1970s a friend of a friend stumbled on a female black bear that had spent the winter under a fallen tree where she had made a bed of huckleberry branches and other small twigs and given birth to three cubs.

"The Naturalists" as we called ourselves, was a small group of friends who traveled the countryside photographing rare plants and other interesting aspects of the natural world. So five of us went to see the bear in her "den" and sure enough there she was beneath the log. The cubs' squalling resembled the sounds of a cat fight as we approached, a sound I've heard at other den sites I visited with bear biologists. A cub or cubs repeatedly tried to crawl out from beneath the female, she was obviously aware of what they were doing and would reach out and gently pull them back in. The female's eyes were open the whole time and she was very much aware of what was going on, she never gave any indication any defensive/aggressive reaction toward us as we spent about 15 minutes making photographs.

Here's a scan of a rather poor quality 35mm Agfachrome slide of a photo I took that day, probably with a 200mm lens (although it might have been a 300mm) -- there's no EXIF information on a 35mm slide for those of you who've only used digital cameras.

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[Rassie]

On a South African safari in 2016 the tracker picked up the spoor of a black rhinoceros and the guide who was driving the Land Rover decided to follow the spoor into the bush. Those open vehicles have a seat on the left side of the front bumper so that the tracker can follow the spoor while seated on the nose of the jeep. We became aware of the rhino when it came bursting out of the bush towards the vehicle. It was agitated as heck, snorting, and urinating and defecating on the ground, and then trampling and stomping the waste, scattering it all over. We were later told the animal was likely agitated after detecting a rival male in its territory and it was marking its territory in that way.

The rhino first performed at the front of the now-stopped jeep, and then it came along the right hand side of the jeep towards the back, the side that I was sitting on. I could have reached out and touched him as he came past. My pucker factor was high at that moment. My shortest lens on the D7100 at that moment was the 70-200mm F/4. No time to change lenses so I got these with the lens zoomed out to 70mm. A scary experience, but also unique. Black rhinos are notorious for their aggressiveness and have attacked vehicles in the past.

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[NorthernFocus]

On a South African safari in 2016 the tracker picked up the spoor of a black rhinoceros and the guide who was driving the Land Rover decided to follow the spoor into the bush. Those open vehicles have a seat on the left side of the front bumper so that the tracker can follow the spoor while seated on the nose of the jeep. We became aware of the rhino when it came bursting out of the bush towards the vehicle. It was agitated as heck, urinating and defecating on the ground, and then trampling and stomping the waste, scattering it all over. We were later told the animal was likely agitated after detecting a rival male in its territory and it was marking its territory in that way.

The rhino first performed at the front of the now-stopped jeep, and then it came along the right hand side of the jeep towards the back, the side that I was sitting on. I could have reached out and touched him as he came past. My pucker factor was high at that moment. My shortest lens on the D7100 at that moment was the 70-200mm F/4. No time to change lenses so I got these with the lens zoomed out to 70mm. A scary experience, but also unique. Black rhinos are notorious for their aggressiveness and have attacked vehicles in the past.

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It's quite humbling to be that close to a large, powerful animal. At that point they are in command of whatever will happen and all you can do is pray and hope for the best.