More salmon. Mom!

This is a postscript to today’s earlier post. I was watching the second cam on the page, the one that someone is controlling.

A bear appeared right in front of the camera, on this side of the river, and wandered off to the left. The camera followed as he moved uphill through the brush. I thought he looked thin, as might be expected this time of year.

A minute or two later he reappeared in the river above the falls and tentatively made his way out toward the middle of the river. As he reached the center of the falls and that outcropping where most of the salmon seem to be jumping, about half a dozen salmon landed right in his face. Startled, puzzled, unsure, he immediately backed off as you see here. An inexperienced youngster, it seemed to me.

He approached again, cautiously, and made several attempts to snap up a salmon. He failed. He looked back toward the bank and I could imagine him thinking, “Mom? Where’s my mom? How do I do this?” But this year he’s on his own and apparently still isn’t sure how to catch a fish. I hope he (or she) figures out that there are plenty of salmon in the shallows just begging to be snapped up.

(A real bear cam fan could probably tell me this bear’s name and age and exactly what transpired here. But this is my story and I’m sticking to it.)