While sitting in my Mountain View office counting down the days/hours, it is difficult to contain the excitement I feel before my return to the Alaska Peninsula and the coastal brown bears that live there.
July is all about the falls. Brooks Falls. In the pre-salmon spawn days, this fall line acts like a speed bump, and delays the salmon’s arrival at its spawning ground. This bottleneck also happens to be the spot where the bears are at their highest concentration. In some years 70 bears have been recorded in the river at one time, jockeying for prime fishing spots. The falls typically feature the largest and most dominant males, but at times there are some bold (or starving) females+cubs. It is at the falls that I will spend the bulk of my time on this trip.
In preparation, I have been viewing the webcam, scouting the behavior trends of the bears. Based on the behavior of the last week, as the salmon run started to ramp up, most of the activity was early to late afternoon, and continued long into the evening and after midnight (sunset is after 23:30). Another good sign is the salmon have really started jumping today, with much higher frequency than in previous days. This is an important consideration because, like the bears on the falls, we humans may have to share time on the platform. So it will be good to know when the best times to be on the falls platform is.
As such, the photography may take a slightly different focus than other wildlife trips. First, the bears are going to be close. So close that my 600mm may not be the most practical focal length. Of course, I am still planning to bring that behemoth and will use that predominantly with the 1D-X, but lets see what my secondary lens on the 6D will be. Most likely will keep the 70-200mm at the ready, but am planning to bring my 300mm F/2.8 and give that a bit of a workout. At the moment, my plan is to be a “normal” person and only have two cameras strapped on, but this concept will be cancelled upon arrival and you will be able to see me with three massive body+lens combos (if I decide to re-activate the 1D-IV and use it with the 300.)
Only time will tell….
In the mean time, I finalize my trip preparations and read “The Beast that walks like Man: The Story of the Grizzly Bear” by Harold McCracken (1955)….see you in Alaska..
Now for a gallery of the people who made this trip a success! (And to give some perspective on what it is like to experience Katmai up close.) But first a quick review of the gear….
Canon 600mm F/4L IS II Canon 500mm F/4L IS II Canon 300mm F/2.8L IS I Canon 100-400mm Canon 24-105mm Canon 17-40mm Canon 1.4X III Canon 2X II
Body
Canon 1D-XCanon 1D Mark IV Canon 6D Canon 60D
To begin, I’ll start with the glass that was used. First a disclaimer, the 600mm and the 1DX did not belong to me, it was Meril’s, who let me use it when he wanted to give his back a rest 🙂 I swapped the lightweight 500mm with his heavier 600mm as a service….
This trip was my first time using either of Canon’s new fluorite super telephoto lenses (the 500mm II and 600mm II). I rented the 500mm from lensrentals.com, and had it shipped to my hotel in Anchorage the day before my arrival. The image quality and usability of these two lenses offer an unparalleled experience, comparing to any other piece of equipment I ever used.
Before the days of image stabilization, a photographer was forced to work within the limits of a super telephoto lens, like a 500mm or 600mm. Sharp images depended on various conditions to be satisfied. To list a few:
– Impossible to handhold, minimum shutter speed must exceed 1/F s for sharp images (e.g. 1/500s; 1/600s) – Require gimbal head and large, stable tripod (like a Gitzo 5-series) – Use extenders sparingly, due to degradation of image quality and loss of stop(s) of light – Panning or Tracking? Don’t forget the switch between IS1 and IS2. – Arms falls off due to muscle fatigue if handholding longer than 90 min (weight) – Must go home as sun begins to set (not enough light, and arm is too tired from holding)
Most of these rules or conditions do not apply to the 500mm II and 600mm II. And if a rules still applies (losing stops with extenders), there are other features that help to counteract them (the advanced IS helps manage the loss of available light when using the extenders- assuming the subject remains still enough that is). Both of these lens defy conventional logic and seem to break all the rules.
So what lenses should you bring on your visit? Based on the accounts of other photographers, its seems the majority recommend a mid-range telephoto as being the most suitable lens for Brooks Falls. Which seemingly contradicts the praise in the previous paragraphs. I would argue that, depending on the time of year you visit, both opinions are correct. In July, when the bears gather en masse at the falls, a wider tele would be beneficial. But in September, when the bears are more spread out and isolated, a narrower tele has the advantage. (in my opinion)
So what would I bring next September:
Lets take it in increasing layers of gear….If I only had…
1 lens/1 body:
600mm / Canon 1DX or 1D Mk. IV If I could only bring a single lens and body set up, I would bring the longest possible lens, coupled with my highest performance body (whatever that may be). The key features of the body are auto-focus ability and frame rates. If the 1D failed on me, I wouldn’t switch to the 6D, I’d use the 60D because it has better AF and FPS. Important to note: Even if you don’t have a super tele, great images can still be captured with shorter lenses. As the above photo indicates, there were times when the 500 or 600 was far too much. And if you want to see stunning images from the trip that didn’t require a 600mm lens, check out Julien’s results. His longest lens was the 300mm you see below, nudging Meril backwards.
2 lens/1 body:
600mm + 24-105mm / best performing wildlife body The 600mm would be used for the majority of the time, but on the occasional landscape the 24-105 would be swapped in.
2 lens/2 body
600mm + 24-105mm / 1D + 6D Longest lens on 1D. 24-105mm on 6D. This was my set-up for ~98% of the trip (percentage based on shutter actuations). This allowed me to have maximum optical reach, while still being able to take landscapes and personal photos of the group (this gallery is almost entirely taken with the 6D+24-105 combo).
I rarely used a tripod for this trip, despite carrying two on my back for most of the time. From the positions that we were shooting, handholding was the preferred style. Over the next few days, I gradually began to leave the legs behind in tent. The tripod and gimbal head did come in handy anytime spent on the platform.
However, the most important development to come from my experience on this trip out on the Alaska Peninsula is the 600mm. In the time since I’ve been back, I went out and bought the Canon 600mm F/4 II lens. It will accompany me tomorrow for my journey north to the Canadian tundra for polar bear photography….
Now for the gallery…notice how tall the grass is we were walking through. It was tall enough to completely conceal a bear from sight, only to be discovered as we stepped perilously close…
“[The Alaska] peninsula endures a maritime climate described as “notoriously miserable”: long winters, cool summers, frequent storms . . . and sudden bursts of wind called williwaws — so fierce, bush pilots say, they can rip the numbers off a plane.”
With this description in mind, I planned for wet, damp, and rainy conditions. The thought process was, if I am prepared for this type of weather, there is no way the trip could be considered ruined. Fortunately, the weather was quite good, it rained a bit each day except the last, and the temperatures were manageable. One question I had beforehand was whether my 30 grad synthetic bag would be sufficient for the conditions, or if I should bring something warmer . Considering that I was already 80 lbs over (read previous post), I opted for the 30 degree bag and didn’t regret doing so. I slept in a fleece and, despite the damp conditions was quite warm at night.
Clothing
Outers
[ ] Helly Hansen Rain Slicker [ ] Helly Hansen Rain Pants [ ] Stio Shell [ ] Jasper National Park hat
Inners
[ ] 3 long sleeve (Nike Dri-fit, Under Armour and Patagonia baselayers) [ ] Long sleeve ¾ zip Smartwool Next to Skin [ ] 3 Synthetic T-shirts [ ] 2 ExOfficio [ ] 4 Smartwool Socks [ ] Smartwool Next to Skin pants
Warmth
[ ] Patagonia Fleece Jacket [ ] Koppen Quarter Zip Fleece [ ] Stio Down jacket [ ] Pollen Wool hat [ ] Fleece gloves
Camp
[ ] Tent + ground cloth [ ] Tarp (for additional rain protection if necessary) [ ] Rope [ ] 30 grad bag [ ] Nemo Air Mattress [ ] MSR Pocket Rocket Stove [ ] Pot + Sierra cup lid [ ] Spork [ ] Buck knife [ ] Food [ ] 3 Mountain House Freeze Dried (buy in Alaska) [ ] Boudin Sourdough (buy at SFO) [ ] Trail Mix (buy in Alaska) [ ] Beef jerky (buy in Alaska) [ ] Bear Canister [ ] Lowa Tibets (wear on plane)
Next time, I will be sure to bring my two way radios, as they would be invaluable communication tool when your group is split up, and stuck on opposite sides of the river in a bear jam….
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.
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:
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.
