Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Polar Bear Mom and Cubs 2014; Day One

Polar Bears; Moms and Cubs Day One…
Today the trackers looked for the mom and cub that they saw yesterday. It didn’t require much tracking as the bears only went a couple hundred yards from the maternity den. Mom dug a day den and they slept for most of the day. At around 2p.m. mom popped her head out briefly then the baby popped out for a few seconds about three times throughout the day. And that was the day. The little gaffer is cute and clean and apparently the mom is clean and healthy looking too so hopefully we will get a better look at them tomorrow.
 
Single cub at a day den.

Researchers flew over the entire area a few days ago and haven’t seen so much as a track. Hopefully that just means they are still in their dens. It was really warm today. It warmed up to almost 0 degrees Celcius and at the coldest was     -18 plus a windchill, so probably -25ish. Pretty balmy for here. It was so nice that I had a nap outside beside my tripod while waiting for some action. It is supposed to start getting a little colder again tomorrow. Some people have a hypothesis as to why they aren’t seeing a lot of bears right now, but I think it is just timing. My guess is they will start coming out in the next few days, but time will tell. "They" think there just aren't any bears this year. I believe that change doesn't happen that quickly one year to the next. They have 9 more days to prove me wrong.:)

Tonight I will check out the Aurora Borealis. It was a little cloudy driving in tonight, so the odds of good opportunities may be slim, but midnight is still four hours away so there's still time to clear up. Here are a few aurora borealis shots from previous years...

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