This post was inspired this morning by
an article I came across this morning about a
grizzly bear charging a group of Alaskan tourists. Ever since
Splashdown had its first Smokey the Bear visitor come a-bumbling, I’ve been particularly interested in what happens when bears and humans get together.
***“….The group of 10 tourists was visiting Katmai National Park and was taking part in what was billed as a safe viewing of the Grizzly bears in their natural habitat, according to the Daily Mail. But one of the bears suddenly charged from its stream directly at the tourists, who were forced to sit in silence, lest they upset the bear further and provoke a potentially deadly attack. At one point, the bear reportedly got close enough to a tourist to sniff his hooded sweatshirt, before returning to the stream….”And speaking of close encounters,
here’s a really amazing one with a troop of
mountain gorillas creating some unforgettable memories for the people who met them. The one guy’s facial expressions are classic and the animals really beautiful, so you might want to put up with the video’s too long introduction just to see them and imagine being there, yourself.
If you like nature and you like animals, check out
this really super collection of wildlife photography. I thought the majority of them were special, but I got a particular kick from the one I couldn’t figure out til I read its caption.
It was of an elephant caught in the act of sand-spraying.
I happen to like
giraffes a lot. I’m posting a couple of my favorites, below, but here’s a really wonderful selection of
baby giraffe pics.
Until the Great Horned Owls that used to give me a thrill began breakfasting and supping on my beloved ducks and then leaving their headless bodies strewn about on the grass around the pond or in front of my house for us to clean up after, I'd felt incredibly lucky to have these magnificent specimens of nature around for what was for a couple of years, almost daily viewing. Though I’ve never felt quite the same about
owls since they (quite naturally) decided to help thin out my resident flock of
wild ducks, I still can’t help but be impressed and kind of excited about the wonder of them.
Here’s a neat photo collection of a bunch of different kinds.
***Soon after my sunflowerseedscarfing bear padded off on his merry way, I consulted this great book I have called, “Living With Wildlife In The Pacific Northwest,” to see what counsel it gave for the unexpected times a bear might stumble across our paths, or we across theirs.
The part I found the most fascinating was this one: “If a bear walks toward you, identify yourself as a human by standing up, waving your hands about your head, and talking to the bear in a low voice. (Don’t use the word bear because a human-food-conditioned bear might associate ‘bear’ with food….. people feeding bears often say ‘Here, Bear’…..”).
The reason I focused on that was because I immediately imagined how I’d likely have spoken to a bear had I happened upon one, because this is how I speak to almost every wild critter that I (usually) have the great pleasure of running into. “Hey, Mr. Bear, How ya doin’? It’s nice to see you. Hope you have a good day”
According to that book, turns out that by resorting to my standard wildlife salutation by including the name of the particular animal I was encountering, I might have been setting myself up to be a beary fatty ursine breakfast.P.S. Loved your frog pic, Celtic Harpist!EDIT:
I was just now cleaning up my desktop anticipatory to finally shutting down this addictive little machine so I could actually go and try to get something accomplished this morning. In the process, I remembered that I'd recently stockpiled some pics of underwater marine life that had captivated me and that I'd saved with the idea of maybe one day sharing them. So, just in case any of you was going to be broken-hearted that I hadn't included an edit with one of my already absurdly long posts, please find attached what I thought were some really spectacular pictures of ocean life.
Be sure to click on them to get their maximum impact.
