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Sleeping Black Bear, Anan Creek, Tongass National Forest, Near Wrangell, Alaska …Image # 2890

I love to nap and have been accused of napping almost everywhere at any time. Yet, this plump black bear napping in a small spruce seems improbable even to me. He was snoring pretty loud and when he exhaled his lips flapped in the breeze. I have been to Anan Creek every year for the past seven years and have probably spent close to 25 days photographing the area. Some question my sanity as I keep returning to the same place year after year. It is the opportunity to be surrounded by ...

Brown Bear, Pack Creek, Admiralty Island, Alaska…Image # 2889

My three favorite places to photograph brown bears in Southeast Alaska are Glacier Bay National Park, Anan Creek near Wrangell, and Pack Creek on Admiralty Island near Juneau. I photographed this brown bear coming over a rise from the beach as it was heading toward the visitors at the sandy spit view point. A bear standing on its back legs is not usually threatening. This bear is most likely standing up to get its bearings by getting above the tall grass that surrounds it when on all ...

Brown Bear, Pack Creek, Admiralty Island, Alaska…Image # 2888

I call this image my “Polite Bear”. I was photographing brown bears from the sand spit overlooking Pack Creek. This four year old bear walked up, sat down about 15 feet (5 meters) away, folded its paws, stared at us, laid down, and started rolling around in the grass. How cool was that! I love Pack Creek, but a photographer really has to be really, really, really patience. In all practicality, during a ten hour stay at the spit, I plan or hope for 15 to 30 minutes of good shooting. It ...

Killer Whale Breach-North Pass, Juneau, AK – Image # 2887

A large 30-foot (9 meters) male killer whale, or orca, with a 6-foot dorsal fin jumps out of the water. Also referred to as breaching, many theories exist about what makes a whale breach and in reality no one really knows. What I do know is that this breach happened right after this orca’s pod of transient whales killed a marine mammal. After the kill there were two quick breaches in a row. While photographing whales, it is very hard to get an image of the first breach because it usually ...

Humpback Whales, Bubble-Net Feeding…Image # 2886

Humpback whales are engaged in a spectacular cooperative feeding activity known as bubble-netting. Rare elsewhere in the world, bubble-netting is fairly common in Southeast Alaska waters. Working together, the humpback whales exhale bubbles while encircling a school of small prey fish, such as herring. As the prey fish are corralled, the simultaneous song of the whales force the fish to flee to the water’s surface. The humpback whales follow with with mouths wide open as they lunge ...

Sleeping while waiting for Bears, Pack Creek…Image 2885

I just spent ten days with Captain Ronn on the “Delphinus” managed by Dolphin Charters. We started in Wrangell and photographed Shakes Glacier on the Stikine River, the bears at Anan, the whales in Fredrick Sound, the Dawes Glacier in Endicott Arm, and bears at Pack Creek before ending the trip in Juneau on the 19th. I took this photo last year at Pack Creek. The job of a wildlife photographer is waiting for something to happen. We spent most of a day at the Pack Creek spit waiting for ...

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“As a kid in Buffalo, New York, I always wondered what it would be like to encounter a whale,” says Mark Kelley. Learn more about Mark...