Taking a break from writing and processing images for the final Katmai blog entry…I went exploring the Pacific Coast, and wound up taking sunset images of Pigeon Point Lighthouse, located between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.
Clouds rolling in, holding the sun’s color
Its a quick 65 minute drive from Mountain View. Following a winding Rt. 84 over the Santa Cruz mountains [see map below], driving through redwood forests, past an Alice’s Restaurant in Woodside and down to the ocean. Arriving at the Lighthouse about two hours before sunset, using the time to hike on the trails scouting the locations.
For the lighthouse shoot, I used two bodies and 3 different lenses. My primary goal was to capture the lighthouse and ocean with the site’s signature rock formations in the foreground. And I wanted the rock formation compressed with the lighthouse. The compression meant use of telephoto lens, as opposed to a wide angle, and I wanted to use a 300mm F/2.8. But would there be a suitable location available to fit everything in frame using such a beefy lens? It was a tight squeeze, but fortunately there was a perfect spot for the image I had in mind. After settling on a couple spots, using the 300mm on the full frame 6D, I set up one of my tripods on a bluff south of the lighthouse, and pointed the barrel due west towards the lighthouse.
The second set-up consisted of a 1D Mk.IV and the 24-105mm. The 1D’s APS-H sensor provides 1.3 crop factor, so I knew I had a bit of extra reach that would complement the angle of view on the 6D+300mm set-up. This combination would be my roamer for the night, going where I go, while I would keep the 300mm+6D fixed as much as possible.
As the quality of light began to increase, I settled in for the next 4 hours, enjoying the scenery, listening to the waves splash at the foot of the cliff below me, and making sure to click the cameras..
Clouds filling the frame of the 300mm
Once the sun dropped below the horizon, the clouds began to rush in from the north. This created a beautiful civil twilight background of pink and blue clouds that gradually enveloped the entire scene, but to the south and behind me the sky was clear. Once the last rays of sun faded from the upper atmosphere, signalling the end of astronomical twilight, the Milky Way revealed itself due SW and directly over the ocean. Pigeon Point sticks out into the Pacific and curves south, this is how I could look across land to setting sun in the west, and south to the Pacific.
Wider view, clouds encroaching
At this point in the night, the 3rd brightest object in my field of view, after the lighthouse beacon, and the hostel’s exterior lights, was the planet Venus, setting to the SSW and reflecting in the still ocean. Using the 24-105, I recomposed with the ocean, sky and lighthouse sharing equal parts.
On the 6D, I removed the 300mm from the 6D and put on the 17-40mm wide angle for a more astrophotography look. I was able to get a couple Milky Way shots, but within 5 minutes of switching the lenses, the spreading clouds quickly obscured the sky. And I decided to call it a night.
The post everyone has been waiting for…..the cubs of Katmai National Park! If you don’t find bear cubs adorable, you are probably a bad person, or an adult male bear that is trying to mate.
This post’s gallery contains an unusually large number of images. I did this intentionally to give an idea of what the bear cub experience is like at Brooks Camp. Other posts will not contain 100 photos.
The first night was surprisingly calm and the surface of Naknek Lake was glass in the evening’s twilight. By midnight, as we sat around the fire, it became apparent a front was moving in. The air was still and quiet, but waves began to slap the shore of the lake, like the wake of a distant ship. It wasn’t until after 02:00 that the trees began to rustle in the campground. The front’s arrival indicated two things: cold and wet conditions for the start of the second day in Katmai National Park.
Fortunately the driving rain began to taper at sunrise, and when I emerged from my tent it was only a steady shower. Nothing that my Helly Hansen slicker couldn’t handle. More importantly, the weather improved drastically throughout the day. By 13:00, the rain had stopped and it was no longer cold. Most of this day was spent becoming acquainted with the bear families of the Brooks River. This was done at the lower river platform and at the head of the Brooks River, near Brooks Lake.
Definition
Bear Jam: A bear jam is when the bridge over the Brooks River is temporarily closed due to a bear being too close to the bridge structure. It can be on land (as shown) or in the water (as shown). Bear jams are quite common, especially if a family is fishing near the mouth of the river. Bears have been known to take naps near the bridge and keep it closed for over an hour. This isn’t usually a problem unless you have somewhere urgent to be, which is rarely the case at Brooks Camp (the only thing to do here is look at bears). Although in some cases, a bear jam occurs when you need to get back to camp to catch your plane to King Salmon. This is not a valid excuse to veto the ranger’s bear jam ruling, and you will either miss your flight, or potentially delay it…significantly (this is when it becomes inconvenient).
Bear Families
Despite the attentive care of sows, only about one out of three cubs will survive their first year.
During the course of the trip, we were able to meet four different bear families. Two with three cubs, one with two cubs, and one with a single cub. It was interesting to watch how the different sows handled mothering their cubs. One took a hands on approach with her little ones, never straying very far. While another would leave her cubs playing on a beach, while she would fish 400m away up river. The spring cubs clung together and never strayed far, but the yearlings displayed their ambition by venturing further, eventually crying for mom when they got too far.
Better call the Bear Patrol
However despite these different styles of parenting, in the early morning of September 6, the two families I encountered appeared to be behaving in a similar manner; with caution. It is probably safe to assume that the rain and the gusting wind was the reason for the caution. Such weather conditions would desensitize a bear’s most evolved and honed skill, their olfactory perception, or sense of smell. When comparing the senses of a bear to a human, a bear’s eyesight is thought to be similar, while their hearing is slightly more sensitive. The nose is a different story. Bears have the most sensitive nose in the class mammalia, seven times more sensitive than a bloodhound. Which, I might add, is a dog breed specifically developed by humans for their keen scent. This means a bear’s nose may be up-to 70 million times more sensitive than the flap of skin hanging off our face we call a nose (plus or minus a few zeroes). When the mother can utilize her nose to the fullest, she is able to multitask more effectively and can keep her family safe, while allowing her cubs to scatter in a wider perimeter. During adverse weather conditions, these sows, with their sense of smell dulled, are essentially nose-blind to their surroundings and forced to rely on their vision to avoid danger. This meant everyone was kept in a tight groups and straying was forbidden. This made for interesting photography because the family, now a cohesive unit, would move in erratic patterns determined by wandering cubs and a herding mother. Ordinarily, the mother would allow the little ones to stray a bit, only calling them back if they went too far. But this cohesive unit was now going places they ordinarily wouldn’t go, such as on the sidewalks near the bridge. Resulting in a bear jam that lasted over 60 minutes.
By afternoon, with the conditions improving, the sows began to relinquish their control and allow the cubs to stray further. At one point, the sow with two cubs even allowed the bridge to be between her and her cubs. This was interesting because I learned from talking with the ranger that this very sow had lost her cubs for an hour the previous week doing the exact same thing. The mother had left her cubs on a beach at the mouth of the river and went fishing upstream, eventually swimming under the bridge. After some time, she realized she had lost the scent of her cubs and became extremely agitated. The ranger explained how she was sprinting and splashing back and forth along the river side, huffing, jaw-popping and foaming at the mouth in distress and charging any bears that come close. This went on for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile on the opposite side of the bridge, throughout the entire ordeal, her cubs were happily playing together on the beach. Blissfully unaware of the emotional stress of their mother. Finally, the sow picked up the scent of her cubs and crossed back to the beach where she reunited with her cubs. Feeling relieved I would imagine. Some bear mothers never seem to learn!
Treed Cub
It was made even more interesting (this is very interesting) that the ranger explained this story to me, because on the following day we were able to witness a similar display of behavior by the same mother. This time it was up near the Brooks Lake. Upon arriving at the head of the Brooks River we saw many bears. A mother and her cubs across the river, and moving downstream. An adult male entering the river from our side and another adult male in the middle of the river directly in front of us. And finally a sub-adult male downstream and on the far side of river. The mother began to maneuver to the opposite side (our side) and further downstream to avoid these male bear obstacles. And eventually, one of her cubs became stranded on the far side of the river, while the mother+cub kept moving downstream and into the forest. The sub-adult male, standing in the river, was only 20 yards from the stray cub, who was on the river bank, barking for its mother. The cub even got spooked by the sub-adult and treed himself (following mama’s instructions I assume). This went on for about 30 minutes, until mother+cub returned to the river (about 20m downstream from where we were standing) to chase off the sub-adult and re-unite the family.
Mom’s Salmon School
Mother fishing, cub learning
Brown Bears are typically a solitary species, roaming vast swaths of land without ever coming into contact with their kind. This is not the situation for the Bears of the Brooks River. The abundance of food (salmon) makes it possible for the bears to tolerate close quarters with one another. To maintain boundaries, the bears use a complex social hierarchy to determine status and position. This social hierarchy reflects itself in the personality of each bear and influences their behavior.
The two most important currencies in a bear’s world go hand-in-hand: (1) size and (2) strength. And the only way to become rich is to eat…a lot. The only way to eat a lot is to catch a lot of salmon. And the only way to catch a lot of salmon is to have a great teacher when you are a cub. That’s right, the biggest, strongest, and most ferocious bear in Alaska earned this title by listening to his mother…
Mother Teacher
The previous post discussed some of the fishing techniques observed. The next logical step would be to understand how and why each bear honed a different technique. It all goes back to the social hierarchy of the Brooks River bears. In July, the most dominant bear commands the most premier fishing spot of the pre-spawn salmon run, usually considered to be the “Lip” of Brooks Falls. From this position and radiating outward (downstream), the bears become increasingly less dominant. The least dominant bears don’t even get a foothold in the river, and scavenge the scraps of their more powerful kin. However, a bear does not begin his fishing career on the Lip, a sub-adult has no chance to displace an adult male. So before gaining “Lip” status, the bear must learn to successfully fish the other areas of the falls and the river. This is where the mother comes in.
“Its mine. suckers!”
During the 2-3 years a cub stays with its mother, the mother provides it with food and protection. Sometimes the mother gives a small piece of easily chewed meat, other times its the fish’s skin, or the whole body. This cub must figure out on its own what is good to eat (skin, muscle, roe) and what’s not (gills, innards). Sometimes the mother feeds the cub on the dry beach (the cub prefers this), other times she feeds the cub on a rock in the middle of the river, and sometimes she feeds it in the middle of the river, forcing the cub to swim in water above its head (the cub does not like this). Of course this is not without its risks, cubs don’t have the strength yet to be considered a strong swimmer like their mother. In fact, drowning is the leading cause of death for bear cubs in Katmai NP. But the cubs must learn to swim and they must learn to fish. These exercises and demonstrations, given by the mother, have an important purpose. These tried and true techniques ensure sure her cubs learn the skills needed to survive on their own.
Near the base of the Alaska Peninsula, a national park stretches from the Bristol Bay lowlands across to the Shelikof Strait. Lightly visited and little known outside Alaska, Katmai is larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite — combined.
– John Grabowska, Katmai, 2013. Alaska Peninsula
Katmai is an extraordinary place and I cannot wait for my next trip there
The Brooks Camp area is teeming with the world’s largest land carnivores, the coastal Brown Bear. Who, despite being so large and powerful, are as laid back and relaxed as any bear I met before. Completely different from those nasty interior grizzlies. The bears here are cool. And while a bear of any size can be dangerous, the bears of Katmai tolerate the close proximity of humans and competing bears like nowhere else. Such an abundance of high calorie food does an effective job to transform this ornery beast into a creature with an amiable disposition….
Attack that human? We Katmai bears don’t care!
I am still trying to best figure out how to organize my posts on Katmai. As you can imagine, many photos were taken, and there is a lot to say about preparations, gear reviews, bear anecdotes, and things to do differently next time. Lets start with the experiences from the first day at Brooks Camp and some general observations made about the bears…and move forward from there…
Day One
Out on the Alaska Peninsula…
And so to the Alaska Peninsula we come, seeking the limits of the known world at the ends of the Earth…A cloud-cloaked landscape, the Alaska Peninsula is accessible only by air or water.
The flight from Anchorage to King Salmon took about 90 minutes on PenAir and once in King Salmon, we took a short bus ride to the Naknek River to office of Katmai Air and their dock+float plane. While at the office, we weighed our bags and learned how much over the 50 lbs limit it was. I was 80 lbs over the limit. Camera gear really starts to add up! Due the small size of the planes and their finite lift, the total load must be measured before taking off. If the load is greater than what the plane can carry, gear is jettisoned and ferried in on later planes. Fortunately I did not have this problem, I paid the $0.60/lb overage charge and was able to get all my gear on my flight. The leg to Brooks Camp is a short one, only taking about 20-25 minutes.
The view we had when we landed at Brooks Camp
After flying over soggy lowlands, lakes, and along the sides of mountains, we softly touched down in Nahnek Lake a little before 13:00. We had arrived to Brooks Camp. God rays shone down on the mountains in the distance as we disembarked on a wooden plank that lead to us shore. Before reaching the shore, we could already see our first bear, swimming at the mouth of the river. My nightmarish fear of not seeing any bears quickly subsided, the trip was off to a good start. After finishing the 10 minute ranger led safety briefing, we lugged our gear to the campground.
This campground can described as an area of tall grass and trees enclosed by a bear resistant electric fence (not “bear proof”) about 20m from the shore of Naknek Lake. The campground is a bargain, especially when compared to the cost of the lodge. Having a National Parks pass gives a 50% discount too. Three nights of camping cost only $18. With camp set up, we set off towards the river in search of bears…..
Bear Behavior and Preparation
Note Otis sitting in the far pool
By September the brown bears of Katmai are big, fat, and round. They are only a few weeks away from hibernation and have already put away the bulk of the calories needed to survive the Alaska winter. The salmon here are Sockeye and this location is most famous for the iconic photos of the bears at Brooks Falls catching pre-spawned Salmon mid-leap. It is possible to get these photos at the peak of the salmon run, which is usually sometime in mid-July. It is during this peak that the highest concentration of bears falls is present at the falls. There have been times when over 70 bears (!!) were counted in the river. The peak is considered the best time to visit Brooks. It is also the most crowded and expensive time to visit. The next next best time to visit is early September, when most of the salmon have already spawned and are patiently waiting to die.
During September bears are more frequently found in at the mouth and at the source of the Brooks River. By this time, the salmon have exhausted almost all of their energy traveling from the ocean to their ancestral spawning grounds. In the process of this journey, the sockeye begin a transformation from a silver colored fish to having the appearance of blood red and distorted sea monster.
One of the interesting aspects of visiting Katmai NP for the first time (and staying multiple days) is that you can visually track your improvement as a wildlife photographer. Within a few hours, you are beginning to recognize the frequently observed bears. First by appearance, whether it is Ted with his hip scar, or Otis of the far pool, with his floppy ear and head scar. After some more time, you begin to differentiate and recognize bears by their fishing techniques and mannerisms. Some snorkel head down scanning the river. Some ambush an unsuspecting salmon by sprinting and pouncing. Some bears exclusively scavenge and others steal. A few bears prefer to sit perfectly still and let the fish come to them, snatching the fish with a quick paw. Otis is known for this, and he would sit perfectly still in the rushing water for minutes. I was even able to take a sharp photo of him in the far pool with a slow shutter speed of 1/20s.
Animation of Otis eating a Salmon. Click through image for entire sequence and higher resolution download. Might be a bit slow, so be patient
All of these observations are important and key to improving your photography. Once you are able to recognize a bear and associate specific behaviors to it, your ability to anticipate action before it happens is improved. You begin to sense when a bear locks its radar on a fish, and can be ready to click the shutter at just the right moment. Let off the shutter after the initial catch to so buffer can be writen to memory, then burst again when the bear shakes water from its head. It was even possible to recognize the differences in behavior between a failed and successful fishing attempt, before the bear brings the fish up.
I still have much to learn before I can call myself a bear behaviorist expert, but it is amazing how careful observation increases your ability to recognize behaviors, and can drastically improve your photography.
Before leaving for Alaska, I studied as much information as I could to prepare myself. I read the bear documentation and eBooks provided by the NPS, studied maps of the Brooks Camp area and viewed the web cameras. All of these resources proved to be helpful. By reading the NPS Katmai Bear eBook, it was easier to recognize which female bears were more skittish about her cubs and how it is possible to age a bear based on the size of their head in proportion to rest of body or how playful they are. Young, or sub-adult, bears may look large, but their bulk may be excess fur. The size of the head is a good way to gauge their age. The head appears bigger in proportion to the rest of their body on subadults. So if you see a bear whose head accounts for approximately 1/3 of the total length, this is a good indicator the bear is young and still growing into its head. The guide also made it easier to react safely to approaching bears and avoid a dangerous situation. Viewing the web camera gave me an early look into bear behavior and introduced me to the weather patterns and lighting conditions that would likely be encountered.
This preliminary knowledge served a couple useful purposes. One benefit was that it helped to psych myself up for the trip. Another benefit was it gave me some ideas for image compositions. I began to formulate the type of images I would work to capture once on-site. By thinking these images out in advance, I was more in control of my gear and ready to switch from say a stop-action configuration to a panning motion.
Day One Gallery
Next Post: Cubs, close encounters, and gear review…
Here is an animation showing Otis eating a salmon in the far pool of Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park. Notice how he braces the fish on his shin. If the Sockeye could speak it would probably scream, “WHY ARE YOU STARTING AT THE TAIL? BITE ME IN THE HEAD!“.
This GIF animation is comprised of 120 exposures taken in multiple bursts over a 3 minute span. I processed each .CR2 raw file in Lightroom, cropped it, and aligned each exposure to minimize flicker. Then I exported the full batch to low quality JPEG, and sent it over to Photoshop CS6, for GIF creation. When I shot this, it wasn’t my intent to create an animation (although I always keep it as a possibility in the back of my mind…). Towards the end of the fish, the sun began to peak through the clouds and brighten up the scene, which changed the light. You can even notice in the image footer when I adjusted aperture to compensate for the varying light conditions.
Here are a couple higher resolution “still” frames from the animation:
What makes wildlife interesting? For me, there are a couple characteristics that distinguish specific species from others and make them more appealing to me to observe in their natural habitat.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
– Anna Karenina Principle, as proposed by Jared Diamond
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond speculates that all species of domesticated animal share six proposed characteristics. The combination of all six characteristics indicates that the species lends itself to being domesticated. If a species lacks one of these characteristics, it has the same likelihood as being domesticated as a species with none of the requirements. Anna Karenina.
Maybe you can see where this is heading. If you were expecting something profound, I suspect you will be disappointed. I have obviously tailored this list to a brown bear.
A species must have the following characteristics to be considered “interesting”, at least until my bear obsession passes.
Rarity – what is the prevalance of this species?
Danger Factor – can it kill, or at least seriously maim a human?
Human-ness (can we project “human emotions” on their behaviors?)
Location
Canine-ness (can we project “dog emotions” on their behaviors?)
Intelligence/ stuff it eats (food)
With that established, lets go a bit deeper. Given these characteristics, it is never wise to set expectations unreasonably high before venturing on a wildlife trip. If your hopes are set too high, you will often find yourself disappointed by what is perceived as a poor showing….this leads into my next post about Katmai National Park..
SF to Anchorage flight was this evening, now I am in hotel in midtown Anchorage, preparing for my great bear adventure. Tomorrow I fly on two more planes: Anchorage -> King Salmon, and King Salmon -> Brooks Camp (float plane) to reach Katmai National Park out on the Alaskan Peninsula. All in pursuit of the massive coastal brown bears that live there… I will camp in the NPS campground there and maximize my time seeking out the bears.
I have cleaned my sensors and lenses, formatted 400GB worth of memory cards, charged 11 camera batteries, and re-activated 5 Pelican desiccants (this Peninsula is wet). Lets puts this 500mm to work.
Check out the following link from time to time, you will see some bears, maybe you will see me. This camera pans quite a lot, but there is a gated bridge that I will be crossing when it opens each day at 07:00 Alaska time.
In preparation for my trip to Katmai National Park this week. Here is a small gallery of photos taken on a single day from last years trip to Glacier National Park (Sept 2012). These were taken in the Many Glacier section of the park. It was crawling with bears, both grizzlies and black bears. I was shooting with Jeff Callihan. We made sure to stay upwind from where we assumed the bears were located, thereby alerting them of our presence by scent. We saw several grizzlies, including a mother and her cub.
One of the grizzlies got a bit too close for comfort, as seen in this gallery. We handled this bear calmly, carefully and respectfully. The bear had been popping in and out of the thicket for several hours, never coming within 200m of our position. We remained stationary the entire time. After sometime, the bear began to appear closer to our position. When she emerged from the thicket about 40m away, we stood up and slowly moved, side by side, away from the thicket and into the meadow to give her right of way should she desire it. Looking at us, she kept coming towards us. When she charged in our direction, we spoke firmly to her, reassuring her of our implicit human-ness. The charge was likely a curious, exploratory one. But one can never be complacent with a charging grizzly, and the simple act of showing our backs could have triggered the predator/prey instincts of this apex predator.
At the nearest, she was within 20-30 feet of us. Once the situation was defused (without needing to spray the bear), Jeff and I quickly left the area and returned to his truck with a freshly invigorated respect for these powerful animals.
The Grizzly bear is a subspecies of the Brown Bear. To be clear, a grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis) is an interior North American Brown Bear and was so named by the “grizzled” (read: silver tipped) appearance of its coat, which can be observed in these photos. This subspecies is different from its larger and less “grizzled” cousins found in the coastal regions of Alaska, including Kodiak Island and Katmai NP, and other brown bear subspecies (Russia, Europe). Despite this, and this is where the confusion stems, the eponymous term Grizzly Bear has been applied to both the inland and coastal varieties of the brown bear. This is because the name “Grizzly Bear” is so awesome that the people near other brown bears got jealous and wanted a name more inventive than “brown bear”. While it is true that a proper inland grizzly bear is pretty awesome, other brown bears are awesome too, so they shouldn’t feel jealous of their smaller, meaner kin. The interior grizzly bears can be found in places like: Yellowstone NP in Wyoming, Glacier NP in Montana, Idaho, Washington, the parks of the Canadian Rockies, and inland Alaska (such as Denali NP). There is also an indie band named “Grizzly Bear”, but don’t let their lame and wanna-be obscure musical styling confuse you with the ferocious nature of this animal. Unless they took inspiration from a grizzly bear’s hibernation period, it would have been more appropriate for them to call themselves “Prairie Dog”.
