Grizzly Bear and Wildlife Viewing Blog: Yearly Archives: 2014

Interesting Guest Photos

swimming grizzly
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The day trip to watching grizzly bears, after August 24th, is at viewing stands on Knight Inlet’s Glendale River. The viewing stands are near a man made salmon spawning channel, which attracts the bears to feed because of the abundance of salmon. The grizzly bears have become accustomed to our presence and the majority of the time we are ignored. James O’Donoghue of Great Britain seems to have captured the exception on film. This bear swimming below the viewing stands is definitely making eye contact which may be because it is about ten meters (thirty feet) from the platform.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

lobtailing humpback whale
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Another photo by Gary Wilson showing a humpback whale tail lobbing or slapping. Most of the behaviour of Humpback whales remains a mystery, and tail lobbing is no exception. We have watched Humpback whales raise their huge fluke out of the water and slap it on the surface multiple (ten to twenty) times. It seemed playful, but no one knows exactly why Humpback whales perform this action. It is thought that it may have something to do with communication. The tail lobs apparently can be heard for a long distance underwater.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

whale spraying herring
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Whale watching tours from Grizzly Bear Lodge on Knight Inlet’s Minstrel Island travel about fifty minutes to the viewing area. The viewing area being Johnston Straits between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia. Over the past several years the number of humpback whales in this area has increase from three or four per trip to sixteen to eighteen. It is an area with an abundance of feed in the form of herring. The above photo by Gary Wilson of Australia shows a humpback lunge feeding on herring. The whales come up beneath a ball of herring with mouths open and try to capture ALL the herring but as this photo shows they are not always successful. You will notice that it is a common enough occurrence that the duck do not seem to be to concerned.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

dall's porpoise
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In my ten years of guiding for Grizzly Bear Lodge I believe this is the best photo I have seen of a dall porpoise. “Dall’s porpoises do not exhibit the typical shy and secretive behaviour typical of most other porpoises. They are very fast swimmers and can reach speeds of 55km/h, making them the fastest swimmers of all small cetaceans, at least for short bursts. They often swim in a zigzag pattern with fast, jerky, steep angled turns. It is this erratic swimming behaviour that makes them so easily identified.” A quote from the website http://dallsporpoise.org which is hosted by two non-profit organizations dedicated to conserving whale, dolphin and porpoise species in their natural environment: Environmental Investigation Agency and Campaign Whale. This erratic behaviour is also what makes them so very hard to photograph and I must admit Tim O’Neil of Great Britain managed to obtain an excellent photo.

 

Birds on tour – 3 of 3

common loon
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The common loon has a unique eerie call that echo across lakes and bays of the northern British Columbia coast. Once you have heard this call it will never be forgotten. In the summer adults are regally patterned in black and white. The Canadian one dollar coin is called a “loony” because of the engraving of a loon on the coin. Belted Kingfishers spend much of their time perched alone along the ocean shore searching for small fish. These ragged-crested birds are a powdery blue-gray; males have one blue band across the white breast, while females have a blue and a chestnut band. The kingfishers are common around the lodge but very hard to obtain a photo of one, as they tend to fly quickly along shorelines giving loud rattling calls. The “common” loon is less common when one wants a photo. Loons are in most of the small bays we pass through but last summer it took two guides five days for a guest to get a good photo of a loon which was an important part of his “bucket list” for his trip to the lodge.

Birds on tour – 2 of 3

Common Merganser
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This Common Merganser is an adult female it is a large, heavy-bodied diving duck with a long, slender orange-red bill and a chestnut brown head with white chin patch. The photo was taken in the mouth of the Glendale River were families of these ducks are common in the spring. The bald eagles are abundant along the coast and will often hunt ducks. It is interesting to watch the eagles in action. It takes two eagles to constantly dive at the ducks until they tire and spend too much time on the surface were they can be caught by the eagle. One of our guides and guests saw an eagle catch a blue heron that was not paying attention. The eagle caught the heron on floating kelp and managed to get it to shore about ten meters (yards) away. Bald eagles can lift up to half their body weight, around 1.8 to 2.3 kg (4 to 5 pounds). Although blue heron are a large bird a national geographic website says that the blue heron is 2.1 to 2.5 kg (4.6 to 7.3 lbs.) so it is possible to lift the heron a short distance.

Birds on tour – 1 of 3

heron
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cedar waxwing
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Many of the lodges guests have an interest in birds and ore often better at identifying the great variety of water fowl than their guide. The next three posting will provide photos of some of those more easily photographed. The great blue heron as a common sight in the coastal water of British Columbia. There is normally a heron on the small breakwater in front of the lodge the morning as well as along the shores on all the tours. This photo was taken on the Glendale River while watching the grizzly bears. The cedar waxwing started to appear around the lodge several years ago as were are in their summer or breeding range.

Wild River Day – 6 of 7

trapper rick
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salmon jumping river falls
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Trapper Rick is a fountain of knowledge about his unique river valley.  He has worked for years to have the valley and bears protected and is very passionate about the area in which he lives. As shown in the first photo he is always willing to share his knowledge with the guest and has many stories about the bears he has known over the years. The guests photographing in the background are trying to get a photo like the second photo in the blog. A salmon jumping the falls. This will require you to click on the photo and then click again until it takes the full screen.

Wild River Day – 5 of 7

ricks lecture
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fish ladder around falls
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The small falls below Rick’s cabin for some reason created in the Department of Fisheries a need for a fish ladder. The fish had been making it over the falls since fish started going over falls too spawn so a ladder was not really needed but it did permit the weaker fish to make it further up the river and thereby weaken the genetic strain of these pink salmon. (Personal comment.) The orange support beams in the first photo go around the corner in the second photo to show the ladder by passing the falls. A trail from the cabin passes along the edge of the ladder. The third complete box up from the lower right corner is the one the grizzly bears climb into to grab salmon. It is like the fishponds at a kid’s school fair dip down and back up with a salmon in minutes. It is possible to be at the top of the trail and watch the bears disappear into the “salmon pen”.