Ruhtinansalmi, Finland

I took this image in the small hours one morning last summer in the east of Finland, close to the Russian border. I was part of a group of photographers visiting the region, all of us keen to capture shots of brown bears with their cubs. This particular morning, we’d been waiting all night in small photo hides beside a pond as the bears are often active when it’s dark. We’d seen a few bears, but hadn’t managed to get any good pictures. Then, suddenly, a mother bear came sniffling along the edge of the pond with her three oneyear-old cubs. Shortly after, a big male bear arrived nearby — males can be a threat to cubs and have been known to kill them. Wary, the mother and her cubs stood up on their hind legs to get a better view before running off in the opposite direction. Luckily, I managed to take this fleeting shot just moments before they scampered away.