Bear Encounter

[Gil Aegerter]

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.

[Øivind Tøien]

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?

[Bruno Schroder]

Good for you he was on a vegan diet. Great shot.

[Bent Hjarbo]

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

[Anthony]

Too much of an adventure!

[Thomas Stellwag]

 a situation I wouldn´t want to be involved, taking a picture in that situation is worth an award

[Gil Aegerter]

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.

[Ann]

What a great way to start the morning: and a very fine photograph to back-up your story too!

[armando_m]

Impressive story and a great photo

[mfilippa]

WOW, a day to remember...! You'll never forget it for the whole life...
And a great shot!

[bobfriedman]

great shot!... glad it was an encounter you could walk away from.

[Akira]

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!

[Gil Aegerter]

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.

[Ann]

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".

[ColinM]

Gil, Ann, i love each of these memories - thank you