Jasper, much like Banff, has no shortage of elk. The bulls are all getting close to the end of the growth period for their antlers so now's the time when the velvet will soon rub off and the bulls will start to get a little temperamental. For now they're still just not too worried about anything other than eating as much as they can.
Today we got up fairly early, had breakfast and hit the road. We headed along the Maligne Lake road, where we had briefly seen a young black bear the yesterday, on the off chance that we would see him again. We were well along the road having seen nothing, before this big guy appeared to the side of the road. It was a start.
We were nearing Medicine Lake and getting all dejected that we had only seen the one elk. I then spotted this black bear sow just off the side of the road. I crept the car up to her in order not to spook her so we could take a few photos before she took off. It turned out that she wasn't in any hurry to disappear into the scrub which was great. It's as close to a bear as we'd been since the time we saw one south of Jasper last year.
While we were watching the bear, I heard a noise in the tree above her. It was a very young cub (from this year's litter). It was a fair way up the tree for such a small little bundle of fur (around 5m from the ground), but it was well out of harm's way for most predators. These little ones have a remarkable climbing ability considering they've only been out of the den a little over a month.
There was no way known that we were getting out of the car! There's nothing more dangerous in the Canadian forests than a female bear with cubs. We were just so lucky that they were so close to the road. And they're just so damn cute! You wouldn't exactly take one home as a cuddly toy for the kids though. Check out set of climbing implements on the end of their paws. An upset little cub would rip some nasty gashes in your skin, not to mention what his mum would do if she caught you trying to steal one of her offspring.
After about 5 or so minutes of watching the mother and her cub casually
go about their business, the mum decided it was time to leave. The
little one started down the tree (with some difficulty mind) under
his/her mother's supervision. I was so stoked that we'd been able to see
these to in the wild and so close!
That wasn't the end of it. Much higher in the tree (about 10m up) there was more rustling and scratching. It was the cub's sibling! This one was a little shy, but was summonsed by mum to "come down from there". Eventually the little family moved off into the forest away from peering eyes. We were completely buzzed. It was just a shame the light was so poor that most of the photos came out blurry. Fortunately some of them were OK.
Just after we thought we'd been so lucky to have even seen a bear, let alone her two cubs, we saw another. This young 3-4 year old was less than a kilometre from where the little family was. This could easily have been one of the cubs that the same mother had kicked out of the den at the beginning of winter. Who's to know? This one was much more photogenic.
WOW! 4 bears for the day already and 5 for the weekend. Stoked! Who cares that the weather was turning to crap.
Since we hit the mother load with bears and the weather turning from average to crappy, we decided to postpone a couple of short hikes we were going to do on the way back to Calgary. We'll have plenty of time when we go up there for 3 nights next time.
About half way along the parkway I spotted this big, new looking, beaver lodge. These busy rodents had built themselves a nice new home & were trying to flood the road to reduce traffic noise. I assume they like to sleep during the day, being nocturnal and all. Clever little suckers, aren't they? Unfortunately, we didn't see any of the residents, but it was cool to see a live dam.
It was quite the day for wildlife. At Saskatchewan Crossing I spotted 4 white tailed deer grazing on an open grassy section of land. Mule deer are everywhere around outer Calgary, and the front ranges but I've only seen two white tails before last weekend (& that was a year ago). The white tails are also quite a bit bigger than the little mule deer. We caught a fleeting glimpse of one near Jasper on Saturday as it tried to commit suicide in front of the car, but other than that, it's been elk and mule deer only. This was a prime opportunity to sneak up close and rattle a few snaps off before they took off.
There appeared to be only the one doe (below) & 3 bucks. The buck's antlers have only just started growing and are well behind the elk.
Jasper's a beautiful part of the world & you should make the effort to go there if you are ever in Alberta. It's a bit of a hike (4-5 hours from Calgary), but even the drive is spectacular.
