Mama Kodiak Brown Bear spent lots of time snorkeling for salmon. When she emerged, the fur on her head was slick with water. Every so often when she came up for air, she also shook off the water, creating a huge halo of droplets around her head that spread out drenching everything that wasn’t already wet.
The three Kodiak Brown Bear cubs seemed like typical kids. One was afraid to leave Mom’s side; one was confident but not completely independent; and then there was the rebel, always wandering off on its own. But for some reason, they all three decided to join Mom in the river as she fished, no longer content to watch from the shoreline. It was obvious they weren’t used to entering the water from that part of the river’s edge, a couple of feet up and covered in slippery grasses. The first cub to start down was hesitant but determined. Then the other two, probably suffering from FOMO, began to slide down too. Finally, the first cub plunged ahead of the other two who seemed more hesitant to venture down the slope. Once in the water, they anxiously began to search for Mom. Ahh. There she is! We’re safe.
There’s sunrise and then there’s SUNRISE! When we arrived at Folly Beach on our last morning in South Carolina, there was a bank of clouds the hugged the harbor and fringes of color defined the clouds. Pelicans swooped across the tangerine sky, silhouetted by the orange backdrop. It was gorgeous, but when the sun actually rose above the clouds, wow! It’s a sunrise I won’t soon forget.
The Carolina Wren! South Carolina’s state bird! Photographed at Stono River County Park on John’s Island in South Carolina! I love it when I can photograph a state’s bird in that state and I did that just last week. And, it’s a three-fer! Not only is it Carolina’s state bird, it was the first time I’ve photographed a Carolina Wren, and the bird is perched in a native tree, a Yaupon holly.
The late morning sun offered both reflections and shadows on Folly Beach in South Carolina last week. A juvenile Piping Plover appears to be deciding whether to turn right towards me or go the opposite direction. It did turn toward me, but while I did get a few more shots, it quickly scurried behind me and flew off.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve walked at Ferrari Pond. I went out early the other morning and was surprised that so few birds were in evidence. I saw this Green Heron immediately when I walked over the bridge from the parking lot and took a couple of shots baefore it disappeared. A Red-tailed Hawk flew over and disappeared from view as well and there were just two Canada Geese on the pond. I saw no other birds until I got to the Salt Pond and there a small flock of Least Sandpipers was foraging in the mostly dry pond. We walked back with no other sightings until we got back to the spillwater and found the Green Heron again. It must be the Fall Lull.
With salmon littering the river’s edge, the Kodiak Brown Bear cub triplets ate voraciously but this one seems finally to be sated. The cub even ignored a bit of salmon clinging to its nose, looking wistfully off, possibly thinking, “I’ve had enough.”
Our first day at Folly Beach in South Carolina was so windy that there were few birds on the beach and sand was blowing every which way. Because of this, we didn’t get down on the sand with our long lenses for that wonderful beach panning perspective. We did see a couple of shorebirds though and one of them was a young Piping Plover which is an endangered species, so it’s encouraging to see a new generation. This little Plover stood in the midst of rainbow-colored bubbles left on the sand by the ebb and flow of the surf. I would have loved to have been down at eye level with this bird but the colors on the bubbles surrounding the adorable Plover make up for the difference in perspective.
The gravelly shores of the Uganik River were littered with rotting Salmon carcasses and feathers from the thousands of gulls that stayed close to claim what was left after a Kodiak Brown Bear stripped the skin off (a nutritious delicacy) and munched a bit of flesh before casting it aside. The cubs were learning how to fish on their own and how to forage. The nutritious spring grasses were turning brown but sometimes a cub began to munch on what was left of the green grass and in this case, the cub tasted a large wing feather from a gull. It took a few chews before realizing it wasn’t edible.
It was about an hour before the sun went down Monday afternoon and we lay on the beach on Sullivan’s Island outside Ft. Moultrie with our long lenses and our panning plates. The only shorebirds we’d seen that afternoon were two Ruddy Turnstones and this Sanderling. As it approached me, I took my last shots of the trip, making the Sanderling, my favorite shorebird, a tiny bundle of nonstop energy, my goodbye bird.
On the last afternoon of our last day in South Carolina, we visited Sullivan’s Island and walked past Ft. Moultrie to the beach where we could see Ft. Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor. We didn’t see much else there. As I mentioned yesterday, shorebird sightings have been few and far between. We finally saw three birds, two Ruddy Turnstones and one Sanderling scurrying up and down the beach so in the end, we got to do some beach panning twice on that day. This Ruddy Turnstone is sampling, with some uncertainty, something it found in the detritus on the beach.
Yesterday was our last morning at Folly Beach, South Carolina. Shorebird sightings at the beach have been few and far between on this trip but we were determined to do some beach panning and hit the beach early. Despite the early Monday morning hour, there were quite a few people already jogging, strolling down the beach, or walking dogs. At first, most of the birds we saw were Brown Pelicans gliding low over the waves and gulls flying in the distance, but there were no shorebirds on the beach. Finally, a couple of Sanderlings appeared. As Sanderlings do, they scurried across the sand and were out of sight quickly. But, in the few seconds before they disappeared, I managed to lurch my body down onto the sand, stretch out, and aim my lens at them. I had them in my viewfinder for less than 40 seconds so I was happy to get a few shots before they flew off. They were the only shorebirds we saw.
The Clapper Rail, known for its distinctive clapping-like call, is an elusive marsh bird, about the size of a chicken. They tend to hide in the dense marsh grasses but the light was perfect early yesterday when we found the first Clapper Rail of the morning at Stono River County Park in Charleston, SC. The park’s boardwalk spans the grassy marshlands where we heard the harsh loud calls of Clapper Rails on either side of the boardwalk. When this Rail stepped from the shadows into the light, the busy grasses all but disappeared in the background.
So far this trip, strong winds and high tides have prevented us from laying on the beach and “panning” for shorebirds here in Charleston, South Carolina. But we’re discovering other places to photograph them. We found a lovely park that has a long promenade where marshy grasses and oyster beds are prominent features on either side of the path. We discovered a few birds there yesterday morning, including a single Willet that seemed almost out of place strolling over the oyster beds instead of over familiar sand, but there it was.
Yesterday was our first day on Folly Beach in South Carolina. At first we found no birds due to high winds that kept the birds grounded. But after a short reconnaissance, breakfast, and a visit to the other end of Folly Beach, we were lucky to find at first one Sanderling, then another, then a couple of juvenile endangered Piping Plovers. Beach panning was out of the question because of the conditions but we set up our tripods and focused on the Sanderling and the Plover. I’m used to watching Sanderlings run toward a wave only to reverse course and run away from the surf darting back and forth, rarely standing still. For some reason, this Sanderling had a different idea. It plunged head on into the foaming surf and ducked under to bathe. When it emerged, it preened for several minutes as it smoothed its body feathers and straightened each wing feather. The colorful bubbles from foam in the surf reflected the colors of the rainbow and made it appear that the Sanderling had a colorful bubble bath.
Last week on Kodiak, we had, for me, record numbers of bears to photograph. But, when there is the occasional lull in bear activity, the guys fish and I photograph them. One of our guides, Chris, loves to fish and is a fishing guide as well as a Bear guide. He caught three of the six Silver Salmon on this afternoon; Eric caught two, and Moose caught one.
We called her Goldie because her coat was so much lighter than the other Kodiak Brown Bears. And, her cub was tinier than most of the other cubs we saw, but also very adorable. Our guides speculated that Goldie appeared thinner than most of the other mother bears, possibly undernourished, and that could be why her cub seemed smaller than the others despite being close to the same age.
The Bald Eagles were plentiful on Kodiak Island this past week along with Kodiak Brown Bears and various kinds of gulls. They were all drawn by the salmon swimming upstream to spawn. After spawning, the salmon die and salmon carcasses were strewn along the river’s edge and submerged in the shallow water. As scavengers, the Bald Eagles were right there to scavenge. This juvenile Bald Eagle was standing on the shoreline and suddenly took off on a mission. I’m not sure what its particular mission was but they frequently harassed the massive flocks of gulls causing the gulls to take flight. We welcomed the harassment as it caused a welcome temporary lull in the persistent screeching of the gulls.
With hundreds of salmon running upstream to spawn now, the Kodiak Brown Bears have lots of opportunity to feast on fresh salmon. While my favorite part of a salmon is the pink flesh, it turns out that the bears, especially the mature bears like this boar, prefer the skin and the fat that is just under the skin. It is the most calorie dense and nutritious for them at this time of year. As we watched from about 30 yards across the river as this boar stripped the skin from a salmon, he watched back.
As we watched from across the Uganik River, Mama Bear rolled over on her back to allow her three cubs to nurse. They pounced, each one claiming a teat. Mama was patient and unflinching despite obvious raw patches resulting from baby teeth clenching too tightly. We saw this mama bear and her three adorable, but rambunctious, cubs every day on Kodiak. It’s so much fun to watch the cubs as they learn to enter the water, swim, catch salmon, and play. One seemed to be unable to leave Mama Bear’s side, one trailed far behind doing its own thing, and the third, somewhere between the other two. They make a delightful family unit.