Grizzly Bear and Wildlife Viewing Blog: Monthly Archives: February 2015

Stelle Sea lion Visiting

Stellar sea lion

This is probably as close as one needs to get to a steller sea lion. The sea lions migrate between California and Alaska. Traveling north in the spring (June) and back south in the fall (September) although for the past several years there have been several dozen sea lions that stay in the area all year. On this day we had stopped to watch a humpback whale feeding in Weynton Pass when this Sealion visited us. And by visited I mean it came right up to the edge of the boat as if to ask: “What are you doing?”

 

Grizzly Bear cub ALERT

Grizzly cub standing

Photos and postings tend to relate to one another. This photo shows one of the triplets from the posting on January 29th. Another grizzly had appeared further up river and as the family moved down river this cub paused to get a better view of the grizzly up river. It did not spend too much time looking as mom soon called it closer.

 

 

Grizzly bears on the beach

Grizzly Ber beach feeding

As mentioned in yesterdays posting there is allot of protein to be found under the rocks on the beach. In the early spring until the salmon arrive in mid-August our grizzly bear tours observe bears on the beach as well as in the Glendale River estuary. In the estuary and along the shore the grizzlies graze on the protein rich sedge grass and turn over rocks the same as black bears. The only difference is that the rocks turned over by the grizzlies can be much larger.

 

 

Black Bear Tour

Black Bear Tours

Every tour from Grizzly Bear Lodge is a black bear tour. Black bears do not have access to the salmon rivers because of the number of grizzly bears in the area so their main source of protein is to turnover rocks on the beach. This inter-tidal zone contains crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. This photo was taken as we first approach the bear. The idea is to come in slowly and allow the bear to adjust to our presence, which permits a chance for a better photo. The better photo in this sequence was posted on January 31st.

 

 

 

Bald Eagle Spotting

Young Bald Eagle

It does not matter if we are on a grizzly bear tour, whale watching or on a trip to Trapper Rick’s on the extra day in camp guests are always looking for bald eagles.  The eagles white head is easy to spot as we run along the shore to our destination. What is hard to see is the immature eagles, which do not start getting their white feathers until their third year and do not have a full white head until their fifth. Juvenile bald eagles are a mixture of brown and white with a black beak in young birds. The adult plumage develops when they are sexually mature. Once we have reached either the grizzly bear viewing area or the location of the whales and we have stopped to view the wildlife it is much easier to find the juvenile eagles along the sore.

 

Extra day at Grizzly Bear Lodge

Trapper Rick's Lodge

If you choose the extra day in camp it is spent with Trapper Rick on a “wild river” that few people outside our guest get to view.  We cross Knight Inlet and travel through Thompson Sound to the Kakweikan River and spend a day on the river with Trapper Rick.  This river is located on the BC mainland and to view a map of the area of Rick’s river scroll down the sidebar on the left to “Pages” then to “Google Map of Grizzly Bear Lodge Itinerary”.  A picnic lunch (more like a full meal) is provided and normally eaten on the deck of Rick’s cabin. In this photo Rick has just finished demonstrating the setting of a box trap that he used to catch marten, a very effective and humane method of trapping. Rick is very passionate about his river and the guests always come back to the lodge with a greater appreciation of nature and what it takes to live as close to nature as Rick’s life style permits.

 

Two for one lunge feeding Humpback Whales

Humpback Whales Lunging

To provide perspective the yellow in the right hand corner is a guest’s head. Over the past five years humpback whales have become more common in Grizzly Bear Lodge’s whale watching area so a normal day in 2014 we would view between ten and twenty different whales. The idea is to wait quietly near a herring ball and wait for the whale’s lunge with mouth open to engulf the herring. In this case we had two coming up through a large school of herring.

 

 

Grizzly bear fishing techniques

Grizzlies in River estuary

 As mentioned in yesterday’s posting prior to August 25th the grizzly bear tours from the lodge are in the Glendale River estuary and the lower tidal area of the river. After an hour and fifteen minute boat ride from the lodge we transfer into a sixteen foot (five and half meter) shallow draft skiff that we use along the shore and into the river. The shallow draft allows us to move up river as the tide rises and obtain excellent views of the grizzlies. In this case it was August after the salmon had arrived and were still in the lower river with the grizzlies trying to catch the freshly arrived salmon. The run and splash technique is not nearly as effective as the stand and wait method but it is much better for pictures.

 

 

Aerial view of a grizzly

Grizzly Bear Below

This photographer was either sitting in a tree or on a tour from Grizzly Bear Lodge and sitting in the viewing stands. After August 24th grizzly bear tours from our lodge use viewing platforms located on the Glendale River, which flows into Knight Inlet.  The stands have an excellent location with the natural river on two sides and the entrance to the man-made spawning channel on a third side. The forth side is the entrance to the stand and is land based so we can drive to the stands and you will not get wet. The grizzly bears will pass beneath the stands when moving form the natural river to the entrance of the spawning channel, which is normally full of salmon and the grizzlies preferred fishing spot.