Snowy Owl surveying his domain with a herd of caribou passing by in the background
Went out today banding here for the
second time, this time with Brad. We had a great day, banding four birds,
finding four nests, seeing another grizzly, and spending the day always around
caribou, of which we had ~6,000 today! Yes, six thousand – it was crazy.
Semipalmated Sandpiper, often quite a confiding species
Semipalmated Sandpiper in hand
When we got back to camp we were
happy with our day, and were pretty sure that we had the best stories of the
day. Of course, whenever you think that, you know you’re not going to be right.
The craziest event of the day happened to Alan and Laura however, when they
were on their way back from the sevens at the end of the day.
About a kilometer away from camp,
they were walking near the bluff edge when ~500 meters in front of them
appeared a bear – the big blonde bodybuilder from the other night. Upon
cresting the ridge, they saw it, it saw them, and it immediately began loping
toward them. It came forward at a deliberate speed, not a full-tilt sprint, but
a sort of inevitable pace that bespoke the potential at hand. The bear kept
this up until it was about 25 feet away, right in their faces.
Here it mostly stopped the forward
assault and proceeded to circle them partially, sizing them up and attempting
to get downwind to get a scent read. Laura tried bear spray, which is like
pepper spray on steroids, but the wind was blowing across the distance between
them, and swept the spray away before it reached the bear. All this time, since
the animal had started the charge, Alan has had the loaded shotgun trained on
the nose of the bear, safety off and a chamber in the round, ready to shoot if
need be. After the first failed spray, as the bear moved more downwind of them,
Laura took a couple steps diagonally toward the bear to get more upwind, and
sprayed again – this time successfully! Once the spray wafted into the bear’s
nostrils and it inhaled it, the animal abruptly snorted, turned, and hightailed
it to the horizon, without stopping as long as they watched it.
An amazing story, and glad they’re
okay! The above account is as good as I remember from the initial telling and
subsequent recounting of the story, so hopefully I have not taken too much
artistic license! Everyone else’s day paled in comparison to this – hard to
follow that with much.
In any case, happy summer solstice,
one that I’m sure Alan and Laura will remember for the rest of their lives!
Brad and my story that we thought would be the best involved good photos of Pacific Loon - not quite up to par with a bear encounter
Pacific Loon - such striking and elegant looking birds
1 comment:
Whoa, bear encounter. Awesome story.
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