Alaska Bears and Puffins 2018
I (Carol) returned to Alaska for the second time this summer, June 18-25, for another incredible photo tour led by Ron Niebrugge. This time the focus was brown bears, as well as puffins, at Silver Salmon Creek, which is located within Lake Clark National Park on the shores of the Cook Inlet. Our home for the week was the remote family owned Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, which we reached in two small planes (a DeHavilland Beaver and a Cesna 180) that landed on the sandy beach. Views of land and sea from the air were beautiful. Everything must be brought in by plane or small boat to this magical place where brown bears and people have lived peacefully together for years.
To say this trip was “amazing, incredible, fantastic” is definitely an understatement.
Our group of eight photographers were so wonderfully compatible! We could not believe the good fortune that brought us all together. Our group consisted of myself, my roommate and now dear friend Lynne Veach from Florida, Marv Binegar from Oregon, Helga and Joerg Clephas from Germany, Scott Pudwell and Tina Moser from Wisconsin, plus our good friend and photographer leader Ron Niebrugge. Our hosts David, Joane and Oliver Coray and their staff at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge were so welcoming. They outfitted us with boots and waders, served incredibly delicious food, threw a Summer Solstice Celebration Bonfire, took us by boat to Duck Island to see puffins, and entertained us with stories of their life with bears. Our fantastic bear guide Megan Daniels took us out in carts pulled by an ATV four times each day, from 6:30 a.m. until 10:00 p.m! She and Ron were superb at locating bears. We hiked across meadows, streams, beaches and even went by ATV (and got stuck briefly!) across a river so we could see bears at the south beach. Dear sweet Fern served our meals and kept our cabin ship shape. I extend huge thanks to Megan, Fern, David, Oliver and all of the Silver Salmon Creek staff, and of course to Ron and Janine Niebrugge for a truly wonderful adventure!
Be aware that you must scroll down through this page to find several posts that include two photo galleries plus some videos. While looking at the mosaic grid of a gallery, tap lightly on a photo to see its caption. To see each photo individually, click on the first photo to open it and use arrows to move forward and backward through photos. To see any photo at full size and higher quality, click on “View full size” on the bottom right of the screen and open that photo in your browser where you can save it to your computer. Photos and video were taken on a Fuji X-T20 and an iPhone 6s Plus.
First, this is what we were there for—to photograph brown bears—and the bears delivered! In the Spring, bears come down from the mountains where they have spent the winter to feast on an abundance of vegetation in gloriously green meadows. They also dig for clams when the tide is out, and it was a highlight to see this behavior. We saw primarily sows (females) with and without cubs, and a few boars (males). A few mature boars came searching for receptive sows. There were also puffins, albeit they took second billing to bears, as did a camp denizen red fox, bald eagles, two moose and a river otter.
This is a rather lengthy video of a number of different bears—they are eating grass, playing, clamming, sleeping, nursing, swimming. It is a potpourri for those who love watching bears as much as I do.
Here is a short video of a brown bear sow known as “Crimp Ear” and her two second-year cubs play on the beach at Silver Salmon Creek, June 2018. It looks like a cub may also end up with a crimped ear.
One of the behaviors I was especially looking forward to seeing was brown bears digging for clams. Here you can see a very photogenic sow called “Crimp Ear” and her two second-year cubs doing just that.
This gallery of photos plus some videos that follow show who and where we were and the fun we had!
We had an especially fun adventure going to Duck Island in Oliver’s boat to photograph puffins. Quite different from tromping through grass!
Here are some unedited clips of our crossing the river so we can look for bears on South Beach. Megan rocks!