Black Bear and one Blonde Bear shot (20130919) Leaving Waterton.

All checked out and headed home, we were planning to visit the Buffalo Paddock and Maskingonge once again. We were pretty satisfied with our visit and couldn't stop talking about the bears, elk and deer we had seen, when there is a "bear jam" on the highway ahead. We look around and find the object that everyone is looking at, and decided it was worth stopping for a bit.

Even though it was in the middle of the day and sunny, these younger bears have to venture out when the big fellas are are taking respite so that they too can put on a little weight for the upcoming winter.

It was very breezy, and there was quite a lot of traffic stopping and looking so this fella was on alert the whole time, making certain no one bigger than him was around.

The bushes it was travelling through at times were taller than the bear, so vigilance on its part was important.

This unit here was thoroughly entertaining. From a photographer's perspective this encounter had almost everything you could want: good light, a cooperative participant, close distance! The standing bear is always a great shot, and this bear was more than happy to oblige. I think my best shot of the bear standing.

This bear was a real treat, but it was time to leave him to his business and get on with our trip. We stopped at Maskinonge and there was little bird life, we expect the fine weather that started late in the evening was likely the cause as the birds would have been able to resume their migration travel. We did find one sleeping immature swan. We snuck in, got our photo's and snuck back out.

I would like to wrap up this post and thus the trip with what, in my opinion, was the best encounter of the trip and that is with the bear I now call Deb :)

I hope everyone makes a point to have a little wildlife in there week!
Turbo