Bear moments.

These are just seconds recorded from the bear family life on one of the river crossing in South Kamchatka Sanctuary (Southern Kamchatka Wildlife Refuge).

Rock climbing bears.

What would make this large male bear pretend to be an avid rock climber to climb up as these slippery rocks? This takes place in the middle of May in the Valley of the Geysers in Kronotsky Nature Reserve in Kamchatka. At this time of year the rest of Kamchatka is still covered with thick snow. These rocks are warmed by volcanic warmth, and covered with first lush grass. That grass must be very tasty for bears after they spent half a year with no food in their winter dens.

In the Valley of the Geysers bears graze on the river banks of the Geysernaya river as well as on the edges of the geysers. Geysers are hot, so in this area, despite all the precautions, people get injured almost every year. Do bears also burn their paws in hot geysers?








It is funny to watch how young and inexperienced animals behave around the geysers. They look like tourists who are left without a guide. When they first see eruption of geysers they get scared and try to run away burning their paws in hot. And only later they learn to carefully try the ground underneath before putting all weight on it.


Experienced animals find use of park wooden paths in the places where the land is especially hot...



...and use stones when crossing the hot springs.


And this bear has made the best prescription for his chemical burn injury: he submerged himself in the Geyser River for couple of hours. The cool waters cooled down the burn and washed away the chemicals. So the bear survived. As a matter of fact, there are no recorded deaths of bears due to chemical and temperature burns. As opposed to humans who did have lethal incidents...


Read more about my observations how bears avoid injuries at one of my previous posts (this link will take you to google-translation of the original story).

Bear trails.

Bears are constantly on the move throughout their life. When travelling for large distances they use a system of trails that is believed to be several hundred years old. This system optimally connects their various hunting grounds and hibernation places.




The bear trail system is especially dense and entangled around salmon spawning rivers.




The ground under the trails is strongly compacted through the years by the paws of these heavy animals. Sometimes the grounds are so tight that you won’t even see the claw marks. It is often much easier to use these bear than going through virgin tundra for humans. However, there are certain drawbacks in such travel, for example, sudden close encounters with rightful owners of this system, the bears, are very frequent, especially in the places with tall grass around.




These are the Kronotsky Nature Reserve rangers on a bear trail. They are alert and armed with signal flairs. Usually, bears are very polite and give right of way to humans despite the fact that they are rightful owners of these roads of tundra.

Playing with first ice.

This November at South Kamchatka Sanctuary I was fortunate to observe a family of bears, mother and two cubs born earlier this year. These animals continued with their business even when humans were around: this allowed me to witness several intimate and seasonal moments of their life. Such as this one, where a bear cub is investigating the properties of ice for the first time in his life. 

Read original story in Russian here: http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/153197.html









This is a photo that proves that I'm not the only adult playing with ice.

Sweet morning dreams.

The days are the shortest nowadays, and every time I try to wake up my kids two hours before the sunrise for school - they refuse to wake up. Today I even removed their blankets, but they keep sleeping just curling up like this young bear was sleeping on the banks of the Kurile Lake in Kamchatka.

Let them sleep 10 more minutes, just enough for me to post this photo.

Open shpilenok.livejournal.com for Russian version of this blog.

Back home already!

I made it home to the Bryansk forest finally. This is one of the last photos from my ranger station T Kurile Lake. It seems like this bear family came to say good-bye to me just before the helicopter came. The cubs played in the snow and then they all left. It was very touching moment. It left me wondering, why aren't they already in a warm den? It seems like they should be...


Good bye, lake Kurile! by Igor Shpilenok

See you in spring, Masha... Sleep well!

During past week bear-mothers with cubs have dissappeared from the lake, they departed to their winter dens. It is about time, the temperature is And even most of pregnant female bears are gone now, including Masha. Adult males, especially older ones will remain on the banks of the lake and rivers until late December and even January fishing.

Meanwhile Misha seems to be very sad without his girlfriend. All through the fall they were playing like cubs while other bears were behaving rather boring. No wonder Misha is missing Masha... See their games below!











Originally posted at http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/138228.html and http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/136428.html

Several pictures of cape Tugumynk.

This is how cape Tugumynk (Russian: Мыс Тугумынк) looks like from my ranger station at cape Travyanoi in usual to these places rainy weather. Free kilometers of lake waters separates us. For most of last week I could not see it at all, the rain was too heavy.











Originally posted at http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/135912.html

Fresh snow!

original

Sunny weather, finally!

Ready for winter!

This is a bear-mom with her nearly one-year-old cubs...


... and this is a male-bear, possibly, a father of the family above.

This morning...

Yesterday I've shared a view of the sky full of starts above my ranger station here at Kurile Lake. This is how the same sky looks this morning.

Good morning from the Lake Kurile!

Misha and Masha.

Misha and Masha are the adult bears that live near my ranger station here at the Kurile Lake. I am watching them play and hunt together every day. Usually, adult males do not socialize with anyone. They are animals-egoists, animals-individualists. Misha is an exception. He is very friendly with all his neighbors; he is always the one to starts all the friendly animal games. And he is especially friendly with one female, Masha. They spend a lot of time together, even at rest. I am almost certain that these are my good acquaintances from four years ago: a brother and a sister.

A couple of bear cubs appeared near this ranger station in the summer of 2008. Most likely they just got separated from their mother. Other adult bears were scaring them off, so the children found protection near the humans. They were always together, even in their sleep they were cuddling up to each other. Since then I have only visited these places couple of times, and did not know how were they doing. Masha must have brought up one litter, and now she is pregnant again. Misha has mastered fishing and have grown to a very respectful size (males are larger than females, and they grow until age of ten). Their behavior, however, remained the same. They still sleep and play together right next to our ranger station. I can often see them play from my window or the porch.






Below are the photos of Misha and Masha from 2008.





















http://shpilenok.livejournal.com/134631.html

Craving for snow...

It is amost beginning of winter here. The days are chilly and dark. Heavy clouds bring rain. But there is no snow yet. The nature is ready for snow. Even my little neigbor, ermine, is ready: he is almost completely white! And below is how he looked several days ago.







There are less and less bears around - they are gradually departing to their winter dens for hipernation... Hopefully it will snow tonight!