I just got home from a vacation in the Outer Banks, NC. The purpose of the trip was to take the world famous pelagic trip lead by Brian Patterson and Kate Sutherland to the Gulf Stream. I will cover that trip, logistics to getting to the Outer Banks, and birding, in other posts. But my first post is dedicated to one bear.
I went to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge four different times looking for birds and wildlife. The place has a variety of habitat ranging form farm fields to swamps. It has a very large bear population. I had only planned on going once but ended up going multiple times for a number of reasons. The main two were, 1 one of our boat trips got rained out so we had to do something. I had such good luck with bears my first day I chose to back a second day and get there earlier.
Every time I went I saw this one bear. It looked to be a two year old in the same spot. He was out on some grass right next to a large empty field of dry dirt. Between him and I was a drainage ditch about ten feet deep. The bear could have easily went in it and after me I suppose, but having it between us was a psychological barrier for sure. Because of the ditch, I got to photograph the bear from about thirty feet away. He was preoccupied with everything but me which made for a nice photo shoot. Every time I saw it, I left before it did. There's just so many photos of the same bear with his face making the same expressions. Still, I took photos under a variety of shooting conditions and I didn't have to rush. The bears at Alligator River, especially this one was probably the highlight of my vacation.
I do know I can crop these and play with them a little. Except for the close up head shot, which I did crop a little, all photos are unaltered.
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