Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/07/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The absolute highlight of the whole trip to the pack ice around Spitsbergen was to see and photograph a Polar Bear raid a seal nursery chamber successfully. I captured most of the action, but the D800E has one big limitation for action - low FPS, and even more than that, limited buffer capacity (mainly due to the huge files), and that came and bit me in the butt big time. I had purchased this body full aware of this limitation, but (very unreasonably) it still irritates! I had no time to switch to the D700, which would have effortlessly taken the whole sequence. Anyway, here goes - it was a Female Polar Bear with two cubs: She stalked to figure out the exact location of the chamber: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1712.jpg.html She just looked at the cubs, and they froze: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1714.jpg.html She launched the first attack: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1717.jpg.html She continued trying to breach the chamber, but failed: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1719.jpg.html Then she tried to collapse the roof of the chamber: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1726.jpg.html The first attempt failed: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1727.jpg.html She launched a second attempt: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1728.jpg.html It succeeded: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1730.jpg.html She disappeared into the nursery: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1733.jpg.html She reappeared with the spoils, a Ringed Seal pup: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1736.jpg.html Then the most surprising thing happened, she just grabbed the carcass and fled! We were told later that she probably thought that the ship was a gigantic animal, hell bent on stealing her kill - after all, within the Polar Bear hierarchy, size is paramount. She fled for a few kilometres, and all three starting eating in a hurry. By the time we caught up with them, the meal was substantially over: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1746_001.jpg.html http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/norway/Polar/Norway_20120705_1754.jpg.html Please see LARGE. Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome Cheers Jayanand