more bears, some of them awake

Day four and back with the bears, we didn't camp for the second part of the week, instead we were in a cozy cabin on the island.

A really cool home-made scrabble set made out of caribou antler and caribou hide by Harry the guide .

The first bear we saw was sleeping (in background) - just like Ralph

Despite watching him for a good half hour and getting quite close, the bear kept on snoozing, occasionally raising his head to rearrange himself and get more comfy.

This print was very large

More conga action!

Giving Reuben some love

A bear bed, as modelled by Ralph.  We saw so many bear beds on the beach, indentations that they dig for night time sleeping.  In winter they dig dens completely underground.

A bear fishing

link to my video of a bear fishing http://s1140.photobucket.com/albums/n576/ralphandfi/kodiak/?action=view&current=P1070572.mp4

Alan in the undergrowth, you can just see the bear in the centre.

Reuben doubling as a pillow as we watch the tide come in

Napping in bear beds

Vic and Jackie.  Vic had been a bear biologist with US Fish and Game Service on Kodiak for many years, tagging and collaring bears some of which woke up quicker than anticipated!

Opening a letter from Mum and Dad.  The bear trek lodge was the only address we've had so far, thanks for the news updates Mum!

We spent the days walking the bears trails alongside the creeks until we came across one fishing or we would sit in a likely spot and wait for them to come walking along the creek towards us.  We must have seen about 40 bears, only one big male, lots of teenagers, some mums and cubs and one with a tapeworm!  It was running up and down the creek with a huge tapeworm about 2m long hanging out of its bum!  One poor bear had had a huge cut on its back which had healed but left a bald strip across its back.

Camoflage is important if you want to remain unnoticed

They did a lot of patrolling up and down the creek, sometimes two would pass each other and ignore one another.  Once two appeared close together, the smaller of the two started having a funny five minutes skitting about and sitting down like a dog which looked really funny.  It then went off on its own and we had the two of them fishing one either side of us.  We were close enough to see their claws, some dark, some white, there was a theory that whiter claws meant older bears.  Also when they bit into the fish we could hear them crunching.

We had called in at the camp area on the last day to investigate signs of a bear bed in the camp.  Harry returned from his investigations with a broken plastic toilet seat and a bag of collected sponge from the spongy seat cover that had been chewed by a naughty young bear.