I've had a couple of somewhat uncomfortable, close encounters with bears before, but this one was the first one to show some defensive aggression.

This one appeared to be a big male, around 500 lbs.

Walking down a road with cultivated fields on one side, and swampy woods on the other. I wasn't paying much attention to the woods. I was looking in the fields for bears or wolves. I had found an unusually large amount of wolf tracks today. Anyway, as I wandered along I looked over to my right and this very large bear was just sitting there, like a dog, on the bank of the water-filled ditch separating the woods from the road. He was 35-40 feet away. He looked calm, but when I raised my camera, he lowered his head and started to sway it back and forth. A few seconds later, he started slapping the water with his paw, then he started snapping his teeth. If you haven't had a bear snap its teeth at you, its sounds like banging two tupperware bowls together. I know that's a warning sign. So I backed up and he eventually stood up and wandered in the woods. But not before I got a few pictures.

The only way I would ever get such nice pics is with a very long lens. You have bigger balls than I do fella!

It's not balls, mostly is just dumb luck.

As far as long lenses go, I was using my Nikon D7200 DX camera with a Nikon 70-300 FX lens.

The "face" picture was take at 1/250 sec., f/5.6, 240mm. I cropped it out of a 6000x4000 image to 2203x2072 and much further reduced to post here.

The side view was taken at 1/250 sec., f/5.3 185mm. Cropped from 6Kx4K to 4910x3365, and then reduced again to post here.

The last photo was taken at 1/250 sec. f/5.3 190mm. Cropped from 6Kx$k to 3432x2798.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Micropterus,

Wow he’s a beauty, great pics!

Incredible pics!

Jesus. THATS A BEAR!!!!! I ran into a “little guy” hiking a hundred years ago and I NOPE NOPE NOPE’d my ass the other way. He just stared at me like he was offended I didn’t want to meet him. Like I said “LITTLE DUDE”.

That bear you have there is whole bucket of NOPE!!!

Awesome photos!

We saw a few more that day:



If you are ever in eastern NC, this place I go to regularly, Alligator River NWR, and Pocasin Lakes, is worth visiting. It has one of the highest density of bears anywhere in the US, including Alaska. You can drive the roads and see a lot. If you get out and walk down some of the roads that are closed, or especially if you get out onto the trails and levees, you will see a lot more. It also has some of the biggest Black Bears in the US. Some approach 800 lbs. They have access to high quality food all year round.

I've never had a bad bear encounter. But sometimes you'll walk up on one without seeing it until you are very close. As big as they are, they are sometimes hard to notice. I walked up on one soaking in a water filled ditch that I didn't see until I was about 30-40 feet away. I was walking down a road when a small bear came up out of a ditch and walked 20 feet in front of me. And this one that was taking it easy on the side of a road that was closed.

These bears won't come up to your car and beg for food. But they also aren't afraid of people. If you walk down a trail and encounter one coming from the opposite direction, it's you that's going to move.

Nice pictures, and he is an impressive beast.

Micro, great photos of a big bear. That is a great area to see them. I still have family there and used to see bears frequently while I lived there. Some very remote areas around there and yes they have plenty of food .

Amazing photos. Glad both parties were able to part ways amicably

I would’ve likely crapped my pants.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
I would’ve likely crapped my pants.

He ain't lyin!

Those are awesome pictures, but if I was in bear country I'd have a shotgun with a buttload of slugs.

Wow!

Awesome pictures. I sure hope I don't take any like that.

I wonder if at full res, cropping down to the eye, you might see your silhouette. I see the horizon in there. He was definitely looking at YOU!

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I wonder if at full res, cropping down to the eye, you might see your silhouette. I see the horizon in there. He was definitely looking at YOU!

I don't know. Let's find out. The original photo is 6000x4000 pixels, taken in an NEF (RAW) format and converted to JPEG.

We were close to being on the same level, me maybe a few feet higher. He's on the other side of a water filled ditch in front of woods. He's looking at me as I stand on that road with an open field behind me (and another ditch between me and that field). There may have been a tree on the back of the ditch where I was standing, I can't remember.

Here's his eyes cropped from the full res photo. There is no size reduction for the purposes of posting here. It is a JPEG hosted on Imgur, so it does have reduced clarity over the NEF (RAW) 6K X 4K original.



Now I'm going to have to look for more reflection photos of some of my other photos. I think reflection would show up better in some of my more macro photos of reptiles and such.

I can't really make out you, but I can easily read his internal debate of whether the juice is worth the queezin!