Chowing Down...

Chowing Down...

Even the most calm and gentle of grizzlies usually like to do SOME things in private. Nursing cubs is normally one of those "in-private only" things - I can't tell you how many times I've watched female grizzlies and their cubs "hang out" in the open for hours, only to disappear into the forest when the cubs needed their milk "fix". So it was a real treat when in the spring of 2014 a female resident of the Khutzeymateen decided we were OK enough to nurse in front of us not just once, but several times (and, fortunately, the participants of each of my Khutzeymateen photo tours got to see it). Ma did keep a close eye on us initially (as shown above), but eventually she focused solely on her cubs and seemed to forget we were floating nearby in a Zodiac.

When nursing the cubs move around from "station-to-station" (i.e., nipple-to-nipple) and in this shot the cubs are working the extreme ends of the array of six nipples that female grizzlies have. These two cubs differed pretty dramatically in personality - the light-faced cub feeding here near mom's head was definitely the bolder and sassier of the two - when feeding on grass it was ALWAYS further from mom than its sibling, and when clamming it persistently pursued mom and tried to steal almost every clam mom dug up (despite occasionally get cuffed by a somewhat frustrated mother). But, despite being bold and adventurous, the light-faced cub kept its eyes on us far more than its shier sibling did. In fact, and as seen in this shot, it was incredibly rare when Mr. White Face didn't have at least one eye on us...

Subject: Female grizzly (Ursus arctos) nursing her cubs
Location: Khutzeymateen Inlet, northern Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada
Camera: Nikon D4s
Lens: Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VR - hand-held from floating zodiac. VR on and in "Normal" mode.
Exposure: 1/500s @ f7.1; ISO 1400. -0.33 compensation compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Full frame horizontally, with small crop off bottom of image.

You can find a discussion about some of the challenges of photographing groups of animals (along with a much higher resolution version of the website) - here on my website:

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/.

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version prior to doing so!

Cheers...

Brad

PS: Like all wildlife images on my website and that I post on NPN, the subject is fully wild and completely unconstrained. Besides the potential impact of my presence, nothing has been done to intentionally alter or affect the ongoing behavior of the subject and, of course, there has been no use of any form of bait or other form of wildlife attractants (including vocalizations)