TALES FROM THE BUSH The young bear with an interest in photography
While hiking in the Black Mountains, Jon Phillips finds that unattended camera equipment can lead to a lucky shot.
The bear had a good sniff, started to bite the tripod and tried to carry it off!
On a cool June morning I rose early to meet my good friend Derrick Hamrick at 5am before heading into the Black Mountains, North Carolina, not far from my home.
Derrick and I have known each other for the past five years and have spent many hours photographing US landscapes, waterfalls, flora, elk and bears, as well as other small critters. We take time to get to know our subjects to get the perfect picture.
Our plan on this particular day was to hike the game trails in search of black bears. On a previous visit, I had scouted the area and found some well-travelled bear trails and signs of their activity, including fresh scat and torn up rotten logs where they had been looking for grubs and ant larva to eat.
We headed to one location where we were lucky enough to discover and photograph a few bears but they were amongst a lot of foliage and our images were obscured by branches. Moving on to a different spot where there were some logs in a little clearing, we set up our cameras on tripods and waited patiently.
As it approached midday, there was no sign of any bears, so we left our equipment where it was and decided to take a break up on a hill. Derrick’s device was in the clearing where he had been photographing butterflies and mine was further away, about 30m down the trail.
Within a few minutes, a beautiful female bear emerged from the dense forest and started to head towards the trail. I thought I may have a chance to get an amazing picture of the juvenile if she stopped to investigate Derrick’s camera, so I hurriedly scrambled down the hill to get to my own.
While I was rushing, the curious bear continued to approach, fully aware of the alien object that stood in her path. When she got to Derrick’s tripod, she had a good sniff, started to bite it and tried to carry it off until we hollered at her!
Despite the commotion, I reached my camera and quickly took some pictures before the bear departed. When I checked, I had miraculously managed to take just four shots of her seemingly posing.