Great Blue Heron feeding on the flats among the gulls
Pigeon Guillemot
Coastal Brown Bears (Ursus arctic) are somewhat smaller than the brownies on Kodiac Island but are larger than the interior brownies or "grizzlies." They have a large muscle mass (hump) over their shoulders which gives them power for digging with long, straight claws.
It was sunny and very hot this day as opposed to a cloudy, rainy day when we were here a week ago so the bears were cooling off in the cold water.
Sows who mated successfully in the spring carry free-floating embryos through the summer. In the fall if the sows are healthy and fat, the embryos attach to the uterus and grow, an example of "delayed implantation." gestation lasts until Jan-Feb when 1 to 4 (average of 2) cubs are born each weighing in a about a pound. They nurse in the den until mom (who doesn't eat, drink, defecate, or urinate from Dec to April while in the den) emerges in the spring. They tend to stay with mom for 2-3 winters and then she runs them off and mates again. About 40% of the clubs don't make it.
The females may become sexually mature around 4 years old but often will not mate and have their first litter until they're 7 or 8. These bears must eat a year's worth of food during the active 6-7 months that they're awake. It's not easy as they have a simple gut, like ours, so they're not well adapted to digesting plants like sedges and berries (which makes up a large percentage of their diet). When we look at their scat we see lots of undigested leaves, berries and bits of fish.
Rufus the larger 3 1/2 year old male
and Ruby (these bears were named by the rangers and are not siblings) who is 2 years old, play-fought with each other for over an hour before ambling into the woods together to eat berries.
Mushroom cloud
Horse's Tails
