Coastal Brown Bear Cub Catches Salmon | Tight 800mm horizontal with Splashing Water

There are moments in the field when instinct takes over. One of those moments happened recently as I watched a Coastal Brown Grizzly Bear COY (Cub of the year) playing by the water's edge, tossing around a freshly caught salmon during my recently concluded Ultimate Brown Bears of Alaska Workshop. Glaucous-winged Gulls lined the water’s edge, circled and called in the background, hoping for scraps, but I locked my focus on the bear—and had the feeling that something was about to happen while trying to keep the distracting gulls out of the image.

Sure enough, the bear cub suddenly stood up, salmon still in its mouth. Without thinking twice, I zoomed all the way to 800mm with the new Sony 400-800mm lens on the Sony a1 II and framed a tight, horizontal head-and-shoulders composition. It was a split-second decision, but the kind that comes from time in the field—watching, waiting, and knowing when and how to make images with visual impact. The bear's posture, the glint in its eye, the fish in its mouth and claws extended with the trailing water for dramatic effect—it all lined up in an image full of drama.

At this time of year, the rivers are teeming with salmon as they return to spawn. It's a feast for the bears, who gorge on these fish to build fat reserves for the winter. But many of the salmon are reaching the end of their lives—scarred, discoloured, and barely holding together after completing their incredible journey upstream. They may not be the pristine, silver fish we imagine, but in their worn-out state, they're arguably even more beautiful—symbols of endurance and the cycle of life.

While adult bears waste no time tearing into their meal, the cubs approach things with a bit more curiosity (and comedy). Watching young brown bears figure out what to do with a slippery salmon is pure entertainment. They chase them, chew the wrong end, toss them in the air, and sometimes forget why they were holding them in the first place. But every awkward step is practice for the future—and fun to witness through the lens.

Wildlife photography is about patience, timing, and the ability to react when instinct says "now." That brief moment when the bear stood tall with its ragged prize was one of those times—and one I won't forget anytime soon.

Another image from my Deluxe Atlantic Puffins and so much more Workshop. Nature is not always cute and cuddly like this baby Common Eider was before being snatched away from its mother and aunts, who all tried to protect it from the Great Black-Backed Gull.

Unlike most other Larus gulls, Great Black-backed Gulls are highly predatory and frequently hunt and kill any prey smaller than themselves, behaving more like a raptor than a typical larid gull. Lacking the razor-sharp talons and curved, tearing beak of a raptor, the great black-backed gull relies on aggression, physical strength and endurance when hunting. When attacking other animals, they usually attack seabird eggs, nestlings or fledglings at the nest, perhaps most numerously terns, but also including smaller gull species as well as eiders, gannets and various alcids. In Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, 10% of the stomach contents of great black-backed gulls was made up of birds, while a further 17% of stomach contents was made up of tern eggs alone. Adult or fledged juveniles of various bird species have also been predaceously attacked. Some fully-fledged or adult birds observed to be hunted in flight or on the ground by great black-backed gulls have included Anas ducks, ruddy ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis), buffleheads (Bucephala albeola), Manx shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus), pied-billed grebes (Podilymbus podiceps), common moorhens (Gallinula chloropus), terns, Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica), Dovekie (Alle alle), coots (Fulica ssp.), glossy ibises (Plegadis falcinellus), rock pigeons (Columba livia) and even predatory birds such as hen harriers (Circus cyaneus). When attacking other flying birds, the great black-backed gulls often pursue them on the wing and attack them by jabbing with their bill, hoping to bring down the other bird either by creating an open wound or simply via exhaustion. They may kill healthy adult birds weighing up to at least 750 g (1.65 lb) but take exclusively the small young of larger birds such as common eider (Somateria mollissima) and cormorants. They will also catch flying passerines, which they typically target while the small birds are exhausted from migration and swallow them immediately. Great black-backed gull also feed on land animals, including rats (Rattus ssp.) at garbage dumps, rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and even sickly lambs (Ovis aries). - Wikipedia.