Wild Shots by Tom Walker

Author:Tom Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781680512281
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2019-02-26T16:00:00+00:00

III

The sudden close encounter, a whirr of fur and bared teeth, charging full on, is the stuff of nightmares. Experts admonish hikers in bear country to make noise in areas with restricted visibility to avoid a surprise encounter. However, bears may respond to sounds in the brush that they otherwise would ignore or avoid.

In the autumn of 1992, my friend Dr. Cindy Zabel, a field biologist who was then head of the Redwood Sciences Lab in Arcata, California, and I hiked into a timbered valley in the Alaska Range where I had recently seen and heard wolves. Our route led downhill through open muskeg and scattered black spruce skirted with scarlet dwarf birch. Red squirrels chattered at us from the trees. A slight wind ruffled the canopy and carried the heady scent of rutting moose. A warm light highlighted the few golden willows fluttering in the breeze. We kept a sharp eye for moose but made no particular effort to be quiet, talking as we went. Our goal was to reach a high knoll where we could sit and maybe see and hear wolves on the far side of the valley.

Less than a half mile from our destination, we saw a cock spruce grouse courting a hen crouched at the base of a tall spruce. I told Cindy that I thought his display, which closely mimicked spring courtship, was the result of diminishing daylight, the trigger for many behaviors.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I hurriedly shrugged out of my pack to fumble for my camera and telephoto lens. I took a couple of quick shots before the grouse strutted under the tree. Bending down I wriggled under the branches to get a few more shots of the puffed-up grouse. There was no need for stealth; the cock paid no attention to the limbs scraping against my windbreaker or my chatter as I provided Cindy with commentary on grouse behavior. Out from beneath the tree, we shared a joke and laughed about male behavior.

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