| Photojournal
- 23
August 2006
Ram tough
It was nearing one p.m. on the 23rd; we had finished our own lunch at Glendale Cove after watching the grizzly consume his. We were done with the grizzlies for the day, and had loaded into the boats that were to take us back across to Vancouver Island.
While we were in relatively still waters, I took a few landscapes, showing some of the area around the cove. The clouds were fairly low and obscured the tops of most of the mountains.
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| Everyone in the boat was pretty excited, talking about how great the day had gone for us. Just to let us know it was all good from her end, too, mother nature sent her seal of approval our way. |
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| And with that, we were out on more open waters again. Around a quarter to two, we found ourselves beneath a break in the cloud cover. The sunshine was welcome, even though it didn't really make things any warmer. I was again riding outside on the back of the boat, with the wind whipping around me and occassional bits of spray hitting my survival suit. The other boat of bear-watchers was following behind us. |
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Right around 3:00, we pulled into a place called Lagoon Cove on Cracroft Island. The main feature here is a marine gas station with better prices than the ones in Telegraph Cove. As the boat fuelled, one of my compatriots called for me to come over to a house behind the dock.
I followed, and on the way was told that the woman who lives at this house has a plum tree. Plum trees are not exactly indigenous here, and so this was a little odd. This tree, obviously an import, was probably the only plum tree in the whole archipelago.
Okay, given this knowledge, put yourself in the shoes of a bear. Admittedly, this might be a little tough, as one generally doesn't often see bears in shoes. This is because nobody makes shoes wide enough for the paws of a bear—next time you're in a mall, check it out. I did once see some sandals that may have worked, and in fact I bought a pair. Those of you who know me may remember these sandals, from about 10 or 12 years back, as I wore them most everywhere. Unfortunately, they went out of style quickly (or most probably never were in style) and I wasn't able to find replacements when I wore them out. But let's get back to bears. Bears, naturally, like sandals better than runners; it's a real annoyance to have to shell out another $600 for two pairs of Nikes every time you flex your claws. But given that you they can no longer find shoes or even sandals in their size, most bears just go without.
Hmmmm. Maybe that was a digression. I was back on Cracroft Island, heading towards a plum tree, and I was hoping to get you to put yourself in the place of a bear. Aside from the occasional salmon or photographer, the favorite food of a bear is berries. In this context, what is a plum?
If you answered "a big honkin' berry", you win the prize, and you'll understand just what this bear is up to. |
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| He's eyeing a plum, one hidden behind a leaf from us. |
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| He really had to stretch up to get at it. |
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Well, maybe I should engage in a little educational spiel here. I I was standing on a wooden footbridge, about two meters above the ground. I was shooting upwards at this bear. The bear was above me. He was in the tree. So please remember these pictures next time you're out in the woods, a Black Bear is chasing you, and you're tempted to climb a tree to try to get away from him...for Blacks can not only climb plum trees, they can climb just about any tree.
They may look all cute and cuddly, like a bulky German Shepherd, but I don't really think you want to be sharing a tree with one. |
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The woman who owns the plum tree was encouraging us and some locals to throw things at the bear; it seems that this brute has been eating all of her plums before they get ripe and she wanted to chase it off. I don't know about the wisdom of throwing things at a bear that isn't otherwise paying attention to you, but a couple of the locals did just that.
The bear was maybe seven or eight meters away from me and the footbridge. That's the closest I've been to a wild bear, but I wasn't worried about it, as I knew I could outrun most of the others on the footbridge.
Eventually, the bear did come down from the tree; the branch he had been on sprang up quite a bit when the strain of his weight was released. He then trundled away from us, by a shed, and into the woods at the back of the house.
With the bear gone and the boat full of fuel, we clambered back on board and headed off. Our next stop, an hour later, was at the little float-cabin in the middle of nowhere. We dropped off those we had picked up there, and I caught this photo of the place as we left. |
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| That was around 4:00; from there we motored along. About fifteen minutes later, we had slowed down for some reason. I looked around and saw no visible reason for us to have slowed, but then I'm not a boat captain and don't know what to look for. While I was looking around, I did notice a Rhinocerous Auklet fairly close to the boat, and because we weren't bouncing across the waves, I was able to get a few decent shots. |
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| A little later, a little farther out, there were a pair of Common Murres, which were a lifer for me. When I took this photo, I knew the birds looked different than anything I was familiar with, but I didn't find out until later what they were. This photo shows the two murres on the left half, and what looks to be a California Gull on the right. One of the murres is behind a wave, and only its head is showing. |
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| Unfortunately, we didn't get any closer to the murres and soon we were zooming across open water again. Around 4:45 or so, we made it back to Telegraph Cove. |
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| There is a boardwalk that connects the buildings that line the cove, and on the side of (nay, on) this boardwalk there was an old Dodge truck that was rusting away. Despite being worn out from a long and exciting day, I couldn't resist changing lenses and taking photos. |
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| It appeared that there had been several overlapping decals or paint designs applied to the driver's-side door at various times. They made for interesting detail. |
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| Here's the front grille. When a photographer shoots a chrome piece straight on like this, they generally have to expect a reflection of themselves and their camera in it, and often try to position themselves so that the reflection is unobtrusive or invisible. Here I didn't have to worry much about that, as the point or crease in the part turned me into a very thin, wispy, unrecognizable fellow, with a bit of a blob for a torso. |
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But don't worry about me and my reflection; check out those juicy reds and oranges.
Now I'll just be quiet and let you enjoy the next three. |
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| After getting my fill of the truck, I took only a few more shots before heading off to dinner. Here's one, showing the boardwalk heading out to one of the Cove's houses. |
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| And here's another, showing a Crane Fly I found on a cement wall near the parking lot. There are about 15,000 species of Crane Flies worldwide, so I'll leave further identification of this one to the experts. He did have nice patterned wings, though; most of the Crane Flies I see have completely clear wings. |
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After hanging with the Crane, I loaded my camera gear into my car and went back down the boardwalk to a restaurant to have dinner. Dinner was grilled salmon, corn-on-the-cob, and other vegetables, and it was simply fabulous.
A little after 6:00 I headed back to Port McNeill, where I had a motel room. On the way, I caught my last photos of the day when I noticed some Common Ravens flying across the road, above the trees. It had gotten dark enough that all I could get was silhouettes. |
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Back at the motel, I downloaded my photos to my laptop, cleaned my gear, and made an early night of it.
Thus ended one extraordinarily fabulous day. I had seen grizzlies in the wild for the first time ever, caught them playing and fishing and eating, seen a black bear in a tree, gotten good shots of deer and mergansers, been face-to-face with an eagle, got my lifer Common Murre, and found a great old rusty truck. And then there was the seal and the porpoises...
I'm not terribly surprised that it was my first three-photojournal-entry day.
Collecting hats from the ice,
Tom
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