Grizzly Bear and Wildlife Viewing Blog: Monthly Archives: March 2014

Interesting Guest Photos

above a grizzly
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From August 25th to early October the grizzly bear tour from Grizzly Bear Lodge goes to the Glendale River on Knight Inlet on uses one of two viewing platforms located near a man made salmon spawning channel. The two stands are less than seventy-five meters (yards) apart and each provide excellent opportunities for close up bear viewing. The above photo provided by UK’s Lynn Morris shows a grizzly bear walking beneath the viewing stand. It does show how close the bears come to the stand but not the “grandeur” of the bear….. view of other stand tomorrow

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly with salmon in mouth
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This photo provided by Lynn Morris is one most guest want to capture. The grizzly with a salmon in it’s mouth the other being a video of a grizzly bear catching the salmon. If you enlarge the photo you will notice many salmon in the water in front of the bear and yesterday’s post shows the abundance of salmon in this section of the river.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

rifer of salmon
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A great photo by Lynn Morris showing the numbers of salmon in Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. From late August to early October it is these salmon that bring the grizzly bears to our viewing area. This area is about an hour and fifteen minutes by boat from the lodge on Minstrel Island. At this time of the year the grizzly bear tours use a viewing platform which overlooks the entrance to a manmade spawning channel and for the bears this is like “fishing in a barrel”. The spring and early summer viewing occurs along the shore and in the estuary of the Glendale Cove which attracts the bears because of the abundance of high protein sedge grass, the tidal flats and rocky shore with their animal protein.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

seaplane flight
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rainbow over knight inlet
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Guests arrive by seaplane from Campbell River on Vancouver Island. The floatplane ride takes about forty-five minutes and passes over many small islands, bays and inlets. For many guest it is their first ride in a small plane and they may be a little nervous but in all my years on the coast any accidents and they are rare occur due to winter weather. It is comforting to know that “seaplanes” land on water and that is every where on the coast while the larger planes that you use it come to British Columbia require large airports and they are less common than all the water under a seaplane. Lynn Morris from the Great Britain provides these photos of her flight.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

whale tail
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whale tail 2
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whale tail 3
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France, showing a humpback whale fluking, which is when the whale raises its tail out of the water and descends beneath the surface. The under side of the tail is used to identify different whales by it’s shape, bumps on leading and trailing edge, the black and white pigment pattern and any scars. There are many websites dedicated to humpback whale identification and some that provide the Photographic Catalogue of Humpback Whales in British Columbia.
Humpbacks show great fidelity to their feeding areas and British Columbia is split into two separate regions. The southeast Alaska/northern British Columbia region is estimated to have a population of 3,000-5,000 whales, while the southern BC/Washington population is approximately 200-400 whales. There also appears to be a correlation between feeding and breeding grounds. The majority of humpback whales feeding in northern BC appear to be wintering in Hawaii. The southern BC whales have animals that have been re-sighted off mainland Mexico, as well as Hawaii.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

single orca
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pod of orca
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Whether it is a single large male killer whale or a family pod the feeling is always the same, excitement. A whale watching safari from Grizzly Bear Lodge offers this excitement which may come from viewing orca, humpback whales lunge feeding, Steller sealions, harbour seals, dall porpoise, pacific white-sided dolphins or bald eagles. The variety of marine life in the area of Johnstone Strait between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia is astounding and mostly due to the abundance of herring. Herring are the food of the humpback whales, dolphins, porpoise and salmon. The salmon then become the food for the orca, seals and eagles.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

 

grizzly following mother
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After some time in the water the mother grizzly and cub moved up the beach toward the river mouth. One can see that the tide has started to rise and the beach is disappearing and this means that the bears will move up toward the shallower estuary and river mouth. Fortunately once we arrive by boat from the lodge we switch to a large flat bottom skiff which permits us to follow the bears as they move into this shallow area.  This enables good close up pictures from a stable boat, which allows guests to move about without fear of tipping or rocking. Yesterdays posted photo and today’s are just two of the many provide by Marc & Solange

 

Interesting Guest Photos

grizzly teaching cub
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Mid-August can be quite warm in Knight Inlet’s Glendale Cove where we watch the grizzly bears as they come to the beach in search of food either protein from turning over rocks or the sedge grass that grows in the river estuary. The Cove is a one and a quarter hour boat ride from the lodge along the shore of Knight Inlet. The Glendale River mouth attracts grizzly bears that spend spring and summer feeding in the area and many are mothers with cubs. If you wore a fur coat in the summer you might want to spend some time in the water on a play date with mom. Marc & Solange visiting from France provided this photograph.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

wet black bear
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We followed this black bear as it swam and walked from one larger island to another about two hundred meters (yards) in distance. It swam one narrow passage walked over a small island, swam to a second small island and finally to the final large island where this picture was taken. Grizzly Bear Lodge is located on Minstrel Island partway up Knight Inlet so all tours are by boat through many small island and along the shore so it is not uncommon to see bears swimming. In a summer I will normally see three or four black bears swimming.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

swimming black bear
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Black bears are where you find them. This seems like the statement of the obvious but black bears tend to come down to the beach at low tide in search of protein made up of crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. Low tides occur at different times each day so finding black bears is not so much location but being near a good beach at the correct time. Day tours to grizzly bears, whales or to the wild river on the extra day in the lodge all provides opportunities to view black bears. The above photo by Marc and Solange from France was taken returning to the lodge at the end of a whale watching day when we came through a narrow channel and found a black bear swimming between small islands… More tomorrow.