NikonGear'23
Images => Nature, Flora, Fauna & Landscapes => Topic started by: Gil Aegerter on July 27, 2025, 08:08:38
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I was on a three-day trip in Olympic National Park and left camp at dawn to see the early light from a nearby ridge. On the way back down, I was looking out at the scenery while going around a corner on the trail, and this guy and I nearly ran into each other. He laid his ears back and lowered his head, and I thought, oh boy this is ending badly, but then he realized what I was and relaxed, and went back to eating spruce buds. I backed up a bit and watched while he took his time moving away from the trail so I could get by. My kind of morning meeting.
Nikkor 70-300mm f4.5-5.6E at 250mm, Nikon D850. F5.6, 1/100th sec., ISO 1600.
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Really great shot and great light, Gil, he looks intimidating and glad you are safe! Is the fir wet or are there some kind of plant particles sticking to it?
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Good for you he was on a vegan diet. Great shot.
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Really great shot and great light, Gil, he looks intimidating and glad you are safe! Is the fir wet or are there some kind of plant particles sticking to it?
+1, what a morning :o
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Too much of an adventure!
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a situation I wouldn´t want to be involved, taking a picture in that situation is worth an award
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Øivind, the spruce buds are really sticky with sap, and I think that is dust or dirt sticking to the sap left on his fur by his foraging. You'll notice that his left ear is pretty ragged, probably the result of a fight with another bear. So I'm calling him Lefty, the Right-Eared Bear.
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What a great way to start the morning: and a very fine photograph to back-up your story too!
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Impressive story and a great photo
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WOW, a day to remember...! You'll never forget it for the whole life...
And a great shot!
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great shot!... glad it was an encounter you could walk away from.
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That would be your most tense meeting in your life!
The result is amazing and the expression on the bear's face is impressive. Thank you for sharing!
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Actually, that is No. 3 on my list of tense bear encounters. Here's the top one.
I grew up in Alaska and my family had a fishing and hunting lodge along a major river flowing out of Canada. When I was 19, I took a year off college and spent part of the autumn helping at the lodge. One day I went out on the river delta to hunt ducks. I saw a bunch fly into a pond that I knew was in the middle of a giant grassy island in the river. I beached the skiff and started trotting through chest-high grass toward the pond, holding my double barrel shotgun loosely in my left hand.
I was almost there when a full-grown brown bear erupted out of the grass right in front of me and stood on its hind legs towering over me about 10 feet away. I thought, can I get this gun up, safety off and pull the triggers in the fraction of a second it's going to take for this bear to get me? Then I realized it was just standing looking at me, wavering back and forth. It wasn't sure what I was. So I slowly started backing up and speaking to it, and when I was perhaps 40 feet away, it got down and rambled away. No ducks that day.
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I find that animals do respond to the human voice when you speak calmly.
They even seem to understand when you ask, very politely: "And now could you show me your left profile Mr. Lion."
One of the NG members had a wild female mountain gorilla, who had already posed patiently for several photographs, indicate that the session was over with a wave of her hand that clearly meant: "And now get out of my way because I have other things to do".
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Gil, Ann, i love each of these memories - thank you :)