Just How Good Can a Weekend Get?

 From the tiny pika, a member of the rabbit family so small you could hold it in the palm of your hand....

to a fat grizzly foraging for even more to eat....

 

 

 

to two behemoth bull moose sparring with their antlers......

to caribou on the Persian carpet that is  Alaska's autumn tundra.....

 

 

 

 

 

to a curioous Canada jay wondering what we are....

 

 

and so much more, it was as good as good can get.   Now imagine all this cloaked in the vibrant tapestries of autumn in the high country of Alaska.

 

 

 

Even the Lady Denali made an appearance.

Fishing with Bears, Part Four

 I've been driving over to Cooper Landing lately to photograph bears that are fishing for salmon in the Kenai River.  Rain or shine, I get there as often as I can.

 

From this vantage point and another "on the rocks" I have seen and identified sixteen different bears.

 

 

 

 

 Under the umbrella on a rainy day.

 

 

 

I have seen six black bears, including this single bear.

 A sow with two cubs...

And this sow with one cub.

Plus, I identified ten different brown bears, from these two second-season cubs who were orphaned last year when their mother was killed....

 

 

This brown bear sow....

With her triplets....

(I'm gonna hug him, and squeeze him....)

 

 

(Twitchy nose)

 

 A brown bear sow with this season's cub....

 

 

And one or two single brown bears...(might be the same bear)

 

 

 

 

The scenery isn't bad either.

 

 

Fishing with Bears, Part Three

 

 

 I think I feel a fish!

 

Oh, I see it!   I see it!

 

 

I think it's still there.....

 

 

Where'd it go?

 

 

Shucks...

 

 

Fishing with Bears, Part Two

During a heavy downpour, these two second season brown bear cubs decide to have a play fight in the river.
 

 

 MOM!   Harry's splashing me!

 

 

 

 

 

MOM!   Harry's picking on me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MOM!   Make him stop!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MOM!   Harry's biting me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MOM!   Harry's trying to drown me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, that was fun! 

Yeah, let's do it again!

 

 

 

 

 

MOM!    Harry's picking on me again!

 

 

 

 

MO-OOOOOM!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing with Bears, Part One

 About twenty miles from me is a place with fishermen mingle with brown and black bears, all in search of  the delicious sockeye salmon that run in the Kenai River.

 

 

 

These second-season brown bear cubs have waded into the river and stood up, giving them a higher vantage point to scour for fish.  There is a fish  cleaning station upriver where fishermen fillet their catch and toss the carcasses into the river.  

The bears have learned to take advantage of this, rather than trying to catch whole fish.  The carcasses float down to the bears.

These guys have anchored to fish in the bears' favorite spot, hence they will have a lot of ursine company.

Enjoying a nice piece of salmon.

Being smaller, the black bears search the beaches and shallow water for salmon.    These are this year's cubs.