Oh gawd...she expects me to eat THAT?
In the two to three years that grizzly cubs spend with their mothers they have much to learn about eking out a living. One of the most important things they learn is what they can - and what they can't - eat; it's basically a long period of observational learning (AKA "monkey see, monkey do"). They are times when the cubs appear to be somewhat less than thrilled with what they're learning.
Thought some of you might get a chuckle out of this...
Subject: Grizzly Bear (
Ursus arctos) mother and very grossed out cub
Location: Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D3
Lens: Nikkor 200-400 f4 VR zoom at 330mm lens - handheld from floating Zodiac. VR on and in normal mode.
Exposure: 1/100s @ f4. ISO 1250. -0.33 stop compensation from matrix metered exposure.
Crop: This is about 80% of full frame shot
Comments and critiques welcomed - but probably better to view the larger version first...
Cheers...
Brad
Comments
12 commentsthe darkish mood also gives me a feeling of being there in that magical forest...
On the darker look to the image: Chose to keep it dark during processing simply because that's the way the scene was. The bears are SOAKED and it had been pouring up until a few minutes before I shot this.
You asked: "So are these bears getting the kelp or seaweed or are they digging for mussels and crabs?" Ma is getting mussels (and likely the odd little rock crab) - don't recall ever seeing bears in this region actually eat kelp or seaweed (but perhaps they do, they're quite the omnivores). I am not convinced that Junior is much of a fan of seafood/sushi.
Cheers...
Brad
Wow. I love it. The expression on that little guy is priceless. Fantastic capture.
Best
Pat
Excellent Work!
Ken Archer
Ron Huff
Regarding Lon's comment "I can see this zoomed/cropped to make the little one the primary focal point with just the edge or leg of mom in the frame. To me, the bulk of the mother's butt makes her tail compete for the eye's attention."
There are sufficient pixels to produce the crop you suggested for online use. I went with the current crop for a couple of reasons. I'm madly prepping some images for a themed museum exhibit I'm doing soon and am "test-driving" candidate images (and crops) here and on my own website that would be needed to produce reasonably large prints for the exhibit. But, even for online use I personally wouldn't have cropped this in the manner you suggested - to me just showing the cub and a small portion of the mom would be a little too "in your face" and would lack a little context (and not tell much of a story). But that's just me and quite possibly many would prefer the crop you suggested over what I presented here. Thanks for the input...
Cheers...
Brad