The neatest thing happened on our hike through the maze, though. As we emerged from the trail and went to our truck which was parked at the trail head, we noticed a dark form foraging along the road leading to the parking lot. It was a bear! In Beartown State Park! How cool! I edged closer to the animal so that I could try to get some good photographs. It appeared to be a young, but very healthy individual. Fortunately, I had a fairly good lens on my cheap digital camera and was able to capture a few half-decent shots. One thing that I noticed right off was that the bear had been tagged, a yellow marker sticking out of one ear. They have an open bear hunting season in West Virginia, so I assume the tag is for that reason--in case the bear is ever killed by a hunter he can drop the tag off at a game station. I hope this bear is never shot.
She wasn't completely comfortable around people, and as soon as another hiker closed the door of his vehicle, the bear turned and vanished into the forest. I reckon she didn't care much for motor vehicles. A good sign.
Seeing that bear made our day, and added something special to that entire trip.
We first spot the bear. Merely a dark shape beyond some brush along the lonely drive to the parking lot. We'd just emerged from the forest along the trail.
I get a tad closer. I never did figure out what the bear was eating, but she was intently grazing on some vegetation at the verge of the forest. Usually when I see bears in the forest, this is exactly what they are doing--grazing on some vegetation or chowing down on acorns or berries that I can't quite make out.
She doesn't like us being so close and moves down the road a bit.
Once again stopping to eat. That's when I noticed the tag in her ear.
This was as close I dared get. I was actually much farther away than this photo seems to imply. Of course I was using the zoom function. This bear seemed very healthy indeed with a gorgeous, lustrous coat. My guess is the bear was two or three years old.
She moved a little farther away, being made edgy by the encroaching humans.
This was the last photo I got before she'd had enough of us and went moving deep into the forest.
2 comments:
I've never run into a bear that stayed still for that long!
This one was grazing on something I never could figure. It didn't seem to be acorns, so I'm assuming it was something green. After it was gone I went over to see if I could figure it out, but I just couldn't.
The longest I've ever seen bears hang around was in the Smokies. In one case we were the ones who finally left, not the bears. When they're focused on eating, they don't seem to be in any hurry to move along.
The one in WV finally fled when another hiker got in his truck and started the engine. That did it.
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