Ursus arctos vandalius

I recently had a couple of experiences and encounters with some of the creatures that make this temperate jungle the soul enriching and humbling place that it is.  As hinted at in the title of the post, one of the encounters involved the Alaska brown bear, the animal that makes this forest so much more than just a forest.
I travelled south of Wrangell Island last week with my friend Zack for an overnight trip to do some fishing and bear hunting and just to get out of town for a little while.  I've discussed my personal view regarding bear hunting which, to briefly restate it, is that I am not an avid bear hunter but am willing to shoot a black bear in the spring for the meat and for the hide.  I am not interested in shooting any bear I see nor am I interested in shooting a brown (grizzly) bear since the meat is typically not eaten.  There is a healthy and prosperous population of both bear species here and the hunting of them is managed very well so I do not have any issues with the hunting of bears although I will admit I do find trophy hunting of any kind not for me.
Anyway, the first day of the trip was spent unsuccessfully trying to find some rockfish or ling cod while we let the day pass toward evening when the bears would be more likely to be out on the beaches eating the tender new growth of sedges and whatever other edible goodies that might be found once the tide ebbed.  The fishing was surprisingly disappointing but the day was beautifully sunny with a few distant rain squalls keeping it real.

So, this photo is getting a little ahead of the story but I didn't want to lose anyone with too much reading!  This bear is the key character in this particular experience so I will get to the point of this story.  

After the beautiful but unsuccessful fishing day, we tied the boat to a mooring buoy in a bay called Frosty Bay located on the mainland about 10 miles south of the southern tip of Wrangell Island.  There is a public Forest Service recreation cabin just to the left of the above photo which is the reason for the mooring buoy.  This area is known for the numerous bears found here, both black and brown, and the large island just across narrow Ernest Sound from Frosty Bay has the highest concentration of brown bears in the Wrangell area.  One of those distant rain squalls found us shortly after tying up in the bay so we spent and hour or more waiting for the unexpected heavy rain to either stop or at least slack to a drizzle while sitting in the comfort of a covered cabin cruiser playing cribbage.  The rain eventually stopped so we decided to do a short walk down the old road system leading from the bay that is a somewhat overgrown remnant from logging operations that were done here 20 years ago or so.  We didn't intend to go far or be gone for long so we only took our rifles and one inflatable life jacket with us as we rowed Zack's brand new inflatable Zodiac type raft to shore.  We went up and looked in the cabin for any interesting things possibly left behind by previous users (none) before we took the short boardwalk trail to the road.  We walked down the road for maybe 30 minutes mainly to see if there was any fresh bear scat on it to let us know if there were bears in the area but found none so went back to the cabin where Zack made a detour to the outhouse while I went down to the raft where it was pulled up on the low tide rocks.  When I got to the raft, I looked into the head of the bay and saw a very big black bear down there searching the exposed tidal flat for anything edible.  We did not have a lot of time left before nightfall which made us make the bad decision to not go back to the boat to properly gear up for stalking that bear.  As I said earlier, we only had rifles with us and the rifle I had with me was more of a close range bear protection rifle rather than one I would use to shoot a bear at any distance over 30 yards or so.  No binoculars, no range finder, no flashlights.

Hindsight right?  We made our way down the beach as quickly as we could while not alerting the bear to our presence and eventually got to a spot where I doubted we could go further without being seen by the bear but where I felt comfortable shooting.  We both guessed the bear to be about 200 yards away so Zack let me use his rifle which he said was dead on at 150 yards.  I had a good shooting rest and the bear was standing broad side to us looking at something on the ground just below the edge of the forest.  We both thought I got him on that first shot but the second shot was low as Zack saw the rock beneath him explode.  We waited 15 minutes or so and then made our way over to where the bear had been to begin tracking him but found no blood anywhere, nothing until I found the rock where my first shot had hit beneath the bear as well.  I was really disappointed and mad at myself, I couldn't believe I shot low twice!  I'm typically a good shot, I had a good rest, I was calm when I shot, had plenty of time to shoot and was using a good rifle with a good scope that had just been sighted in recently.  That is hunting sometimes, just not usually the stories hunters tell to elevate their hunting status.  Failure is usually not as interesting as success.  Admittedly though, it didn't break my heart to not kill that bear and knowing that I had two clean misses that did not wound him made me able to accept my defeat a little more easily.  (If we would have found any blood at all or not found where both bullets hit the rocks, we would have looked for that bear until it was too dark to see and then come back again the next morning)  We walked back to the boat sometimes on the shore, sometimes in the forest where it was almost too dark to see feeling disappointed.  I also spent the walk back silently berating myself for not going back to the boat first to prepare properly and, as it turned out, a range finder would have dramatically changed the result of that hunt.

I was the first one of us to get to a spot where I could see the raft and could see without a doubt that it was no longer inflated.  No longer inflated was a briefly optimistic thought that went through my mind before I accepted that it had been mauled by a bear.  Not really just mauled, closer to destroyed.  I knew that it wasn't the bear that we had just tried to shoot, that bear was in the opposite direction somewhere and would have had to pass by us to get to the raft.  This was done by a different bear, a bear that had probably been in the area the entire time watching and listening to us.   Kind of creepy knowing that this bear had most likely been in the forest nearby when we hiked up the trail to the road and back and when I walked down to the raft before spotting the black bear.  Bears are very curious and have a taste for plastics, rubber, petroleum products, etc.  I don't mean that they like the taste of them and eat them but the smells of these things attract them and seem to be too hard for them to resist inspecting.  There are countless stories of bears chewing on plastic fuel containers, fuel lines for diesel cabin heaters, unattended kayaks and rafts left on beaches.  This shiny new raft still smelled strongly of new rubber so was probably just too much for this bear to resist and it really tore it apart, no patch job for this raft.

Zack was not happy.  The raft was brand new and cost him $1600 and was now reduced to a useless piece of rubber crumpled on the rocks with no sign of the vandal anywhere.  Zack had a tag which allows him to hunt a brown bear so he vowed to shoot it if it showed itself again but our more immediate concern was getting to the boat which was only about 50 yards away but with 50 yards of cold, dark water between us and it.  It was getting dark now so we had to do something soon, either decide to spend the night in the cabin or swim to the boat.  I've had to swim for more than one boat in remote areas here so I volunteered to swim out and bring the boat to the shore to load up the limp shredded raft and Zack.  After tying back up to the buoy and while I was putting on some dry, warm clothes,  Zack vented and fumed a bit about his raft vowing to shoot any brown bear he saw. I was still mulling over my unsuccessful shooting so got out my range finder and picked a spot that I thought was about the same distance as the bear was when I shot.  325 yards!  I got Zack to do the same thing and he got a distance of just over 300 yards which explains why I shot low both times.  The bear was farther away than we realized which made me aim to low to correct for the bullet's drop at that distance.  If we would have taken the time to go to the boat and get the range finder I have no doubt I would have some bear meat in the freezer right now.  

The disappointing day ended and the next morning while we were drinking coffee, Zack spotted the brown bear in the above pictures come out of the forest and begin to make its way down the rocks to the exposed low tide beach.  We felt pretty sure that this was the same bear that mauled the raft and sure enough, the bear went to the exact spot where the raft had been and began sniffing and moving rocks around.  Zack's determination to shoot the bear that mauled his raft waned upon seeing this bear as she was not very big for a brown bear and seemed to be a young female probably 5 or 6 years old.  She seemed to taunt us for over an hour as she mostly ignored us on the boat even when I blew on a deer call and blatantly started to loudly yell at her to try to get her to look at me so I could shoot her with my camera.  

She eventually wandered back into the forest and we eventually left the bay to make our way back to Wrangell.  We came across a group of 4 killer whales on the way back which always is exciting for me to see, there will be a lot more about killer whales in the next post as I just had the best killer whale experience I have ever had.  This hunting trip was somehow both disappointing and amazing at the same time.  I think that is the nature of this wild place, it is somehow two different things at the same time so often: beautiful and miserable, intimidating and inspiring, difficult and exhilarating.  And, to be honest, there is a part of me that is happy to know that both of those bears are still out there doing bear things.

Townsend's Warbler

Spring is still springing and there is color and song back in the temperate jungle.

Not the best photos I've ever taken but a fast moving bird is always hard to capture and the presence of a dirty window between the camera and the subject isn't ideal either!

Spotted Mistletoe Berry Eating Mountain Bird

One of the most common birds found here in SEAK and in the Pacific NW is the Varied Thrush, a close relative to another common bird, the American Robin.  Of all the birds found in the temperate jungles of SEAK, I think the Varied Thrush is the most representative of this primeval rainforest.
The song of a Varied Thrush isn't so much a song as it is an audible sketching of the mysterious and brooding beauty of this wilderness coast.  The song consists of burry whistles and trills spaced widely apart that compliment the hanging lichens, the dense stands of wild trees, and give voice to the spirit of this dark and intimidating forest.  The Varied Thrush's song fits this forest like the fog which so often lazily traverses the canopy and maybe that is the best way to describe it - the Varied Thrush's song is beautiful in the way that fog wrapping wraithing through an ancient forest is beautiful.  The song is sad and solemn sounding, lonely in its slow rhythm but always pleasing to hear.  It is an introspective song, a song of contemplation, a song of inner tranquility.  I can think of no other sound from no other animal that fits this ecology so perfectly.

Unfortunately, these are the best photos I have to offer of the subject of this post.  These birds tend to fly away when a person gets close and are usually hidden high up in a lichen shrouded tree so I haven't been very successful in convincing one of them to pose for photos.  The personality of these birds fits the nature of their song - they don't show off, they don't draw attention to themselves, they don't feel the need to impress.  Even if they could, I doubt these birds would partake in social media and let their egos run rabid in our unfortunate culture of "ME".

I don't know about anyone else, but I see a somewhat sinister smiling jack o'lantern in the black and orange markings in the above photo.

This suet feeder was the bait that brought this guy in close enough and long enough for me to get some adequate photos through my bedroom window.  This bird must be claiming the area around me as its territory as he has become a regular in my yard and the surrounding trees and provides me with some beautiful morning music that blends nicely with the sounds of the small creek flowing nearby.  The Varied Thrush song goes perfectly with the music of a small flowing creek in the way that the call of an owl goes with a quiet nighttime forest.

Oh, one last thing regarding the title of this post.  The scientific name of the Varied Thrush is Ixoreus naevius and I had thought that I had read somewhere that this name meant "spotted mistletoe berry eating mountain bird" but now I can't verify that.  Even if this isn't true, it is still appropriate and fitting and is a much more interesting name than Varied Thrush.

Pretty Boy

One of my coworker buddies has a very photogenic dog who posed briefly for me in the back of his truck.

Spring continues to spring here with daffodils and crocuses blooming in yards, rhubarb beginning to show itself, and a few sightings of bears roaming about after the winter sleep.  April has become a little rainy which is disappointing after all those weeks of sunshine but the rain is also very much needed as the lake that powers our hydroelectric plant is extremely low as is the town's reservoir.  There is some new snow falling high in the mountains as well adding at least a little more to the snowpack which is important to provide a constant steady flow of water throughout the summer.  April showers bring May flowers I guess but I'm still pulling for the Sun to come back!

Wrangell's annual Birdfest is approaching at the end of the month and with it the usual photography contest.  Unless I get some better photos between now and then, here are my entries this year.

The first two are a type of sandpiper called Dunlins which are a migratory shorebird that is a common traveler here in the spring.  The next two are of a Western Sandpiper which is probably the most common migratory shorebird on the Stikine River delta.  These guys are small but numerous and travel in flocks of hundreds and thousands that are mesmerizing to watch as they dodge and wheel through the sky.  

The last photo is obviously of a Bald Eagle which was perched in a tree above the body of a dead sea lion lodged by the river current against some logs.  

And............SPRING!

Well, this isn't the original post that I had written but somehow it just disappeared and I can't get it back and I'm too irritated to write it all over again.  My apologies but I try to keep the profanities to a minimum here and at the moment there are many of them trying to escape my thoughts after seeing the last half an hour of effort disappear.
So…...I'm just going to post a few of the first photos I've taken so far this spring.

A few sea lion portraits of two different huge sea lion bulls over at the seasonal haul out near the edge of the Stikine River flats where they gather in the spring to feast on hooligan.

The Trumpeter Swans are passing through and are currently hanging out at one of the nearby lakes where they are commonly seen in the spring and the fall.  There is still some ice on the lake but it is melting pretty fast.  The light was really interesting too.

I thought the combination of light, patterns, and broken reflections was interesting.

An incredible rainbow originating from the Stikine River delta the other day.  If only I would have had the ISO setting on my camera set properly!

Mushrooms

It is the time of year here in Southeast Alaska when the most interesting mushrooms and other fungi put forth their obvious above ground manifestations.  There are mushrooms to be found throughout the year but the late summer and early fall are when the most interesting, tasty, and beautiful ones emerge from the earth.  I have become increasingly fascinated with mushrooms in the last few years having evolved from a hunter of the more common and well known edible ones, to a true mycophile intrigued with all aspects of them not just their edibility or psychoactive properties.  Did you know that mushrooms (when I say mushrooms this includes all fungi) are more closely related evolutionarily to animals than they are to plants?  Did you know that 30% of healthy soil is made up of the mycelia of fungi?  Did you know that numerous studies from highly respected universities are finding overwhelming evidence that certain mushrooms are undeniably beneficial in treating addiction, depression, PTSD, phobias, and even dementia?  Did you know that mushrooms can regrow and/or reroute neural pathways in the brain?
My growing obsession with learning more about mushrooms was triggered by three things, all of which are episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast to which I also have a bit of an obsession.  The first podcast which truly had me thoroughly engrossed and fascinated was episode #1035 with Paul Stamets who is a mushroom expert and researcher.  I don't know where I would even begin to summarize all of the incredibly interesting information he talks about so I will just very strongly recommend listening to it or watching it on YouTube if you have an interest in mushrooms.  He has made me view mushrooms as almost sentient beings.  Sounds like I've been living in rural Alaska for too long I know but listen to what he has to say and then judge me!

I have posted some photos and written a little about these mushrooms in the past.  These are the fly agarics which are one of the prettiest and well known mushrooms out in the forest.  This mushroom is in the Amanita genus which is the genus of mushrooms responsible for the vast majority of deaths from eating the wrong mushrooms.  This genus has species with common names like Death Cap and Destroying Angel so they are ones to be careful with.  This particular Amanita is very rarely deadly and has been used by many cultures in the world as a means to access the spirit world for insights into the world around them.  I don't have any personal experience with this mushroom as far as ingestion for a spiritual journey and from all that I have read about it, it seems a little too unpredictable for me to really want to experiment with.  I am an adventurous sort and love a good spiritual journey from time to time so I won't rule it out completely.  For now, I just really appreciate this mushroom for its beauty and mystery.  On the subject of hallucinogenic mushrooms, there has been a lot of interesting and very credible medical research in universities like Johns Hopkins and UCLA with the more reliable and "predictable" psilocybin mushrooms.  Medical research has found overwhelming positive benefit from the controlled use of psilocybe mushrooms to treat PTSD, depression, addiction, and to ease the mental duress of people with terminal illnesses.  It will be a slow transition for mainstream society to accept the true medical value of "magic" mushrooms but as we have seen with marijuana, results are hard to ignore.  There have also been a lot of interesting medical discoveries involving "normal" mushrooms over the last 5 or so years.  The Lion's Mane mushroom is not only very pretty but also regenerates neurons, regrows neural pathways in the brain, and has been shown to slow and even reverse the onset of dementia.  I could go on and on but will recommend listening to the podcast with Paul Stamets and some of his own video lectures as well as checking out the website fungi.com.  There are miracles in mushrooms!!

This hefty mushroom is one of the most prized and delicious of edible mushrooms but unfortunately for the photographer, it was a little on the rotten side when I found it.  This is a King Bolete.  This particular Bolete can weigh up to several pounds and get to a foot across at the top!  They are very difficult to find while they are still in a condition to be edible though here in Southeast AK as our wet environment causes them to rot quickly and insects seem to find them delicious as well.  Boletes are easily identified because instead of having gills underneath the cap like the prototypical mushrooms do, these guys have pores beneath the cap.

This was an exciting find for me as it was the first time I had seen this particular mushroom in the area.  I have seen them before but never in a place as easy to get to as this was.  This beautiful mushroom is called a scaly hedgehog.  It is edible but isn't really anything tasty enough to pick so I just left them to continue to look pretty under the trees.  These mushrooms are called toothed mushrooms as they have soft spinelike teeth underneath their caps rather than gills.

These two mushrooms are another type of toothed mushroom and are called hedgehogs.  You can see where the name comes from when you look at the soft spines underneath.  These mushrooms are excellent edibles.  I have several jars of them dried in my cupboard and usually pick some every year in my secret hedgehog place.  They go really well with some Sitka blacktail deer backstraps!  This is one of the easiest and safest edible mushrooms to identify as there are no dangerous lookalikes.  The teeth underneath and the look and color of a perfectly cooked pancake on the top are the ways in which I identify them.  Finding edible mushrooms in the forest, especially when you are intentionally looking for them, is a very pleasing experience.

Just some close up shots of the scaly hedgehogs.  I think they are really pretty.

Some macrophotography to show off just how pretty a mushroom can be.  This particular one looks metallic.

An aging Amanita.

Angel Wing mushrooms.  These are edible but are not particularly flavorful so I also leave these alone to do their thing in the forest.

This is not a particularly pretty mushroom nor is it edible but it is interesting from an arborist perspective as it provides a clue to the health of the spruce tree growing very nearby.  This fungus grows on the ground near the base of trees and indicates the strong possibility of rot within the nearby tree, specifically brown cubical rot.  In many ways, the various fungi are the orchestrators of how a forest grows.  The majority of fungi are not visible to us as they live underground interconnected with the soil and the plants growing in that soil, the mushrooms that mysteriously appear seemingly overnight sometimes are just the parts of the fungus that emerge to allow for reproduction.  It is fungi that provide the mechanism for so many processes that need to happen for there to be a forest at all.  They help trees obtain the nutrients they need from the soil in symbiotic partnerships, they weaken and kill some trees and then break them down into more soil, they provide food and protection to plants and animals and they offer we humans an opportunity to wonder at their mysterious existences.