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Ashok Nair

High Drama at the Waterfront

There are times when you watch a scene unfold in front of you, right from the start to the very end. Like when you know that the cheetah is hungry, and is looking to hunt and you stay with her as she plans her attack and later, finishes off her meal.

 

There are times when you watch a part of an entire chapter but it still feels complete. Like when a male leopard goes up a tree where a kill is stashed. You haven't seen the hunt, yet, you definitely know that it was a successful hunt and you know tht the leopard will in all probability finish his meal. Plus you got an image of a leopard going up a tree.

 

And then there are times like what I encountered at Svalbard.

 

Where we enter the scene where we don’t know the beginning and neither do we know how it ended. Regardless of that, we stay captivated.

 

Let me explain.

 

We were at the fag end of another fabulous trip to Svalbard. As we steamed towards Longyearbyen, we decided to make a small halt and go down to inspect the place where we had seen our first polar bear. There was a walrus carcass and it was highly improbable that the bear would have finished it off. We surmised that he must be still hanging around there. Let us check if there are any good photo opportunities.

 

Well. Did I tell you that this was an incredible trip ? An ordinary sighting would have been so out of place in this trip.

 

As we got closer to the scene on our Zodiacs, we noticed that there wasn’t just one bear, but there was a second one. A smaller one, with a collar around the neck, confirming that this other bear was a female ( its not possible to put a collar around the neck of males, they are too thick and the collars break off ).

 

What followed was intriguing. We have no clue of how this drama would have started...nor do we know how this had ended. But, what we witnessed was fascinating. For a change, let me not try to labour through insufficient words in an attempt to explain the situation, but instead use the images I took. ( I am afraid I let my imagination run riot in the captions :) )

 

The time of the day and the location was such that underexposing the images lent a dramatic feel to the backlit images.


Here goes…

The big male was still there. But, something is bothering him...

Sniff. Sniff. I smell something that should not be here.

And then we saw her...a little higher up...looking down at the male

" Gotta run. It might be safer to get closer to the water..."

" One sec... how do I look?"

"Oops. Bad idea. He has caught up."

" I need to RUN !!! "

" Have I escaped...is he around ?"

" Heh. Heh. You think ?"

" @*$#!!!...I need to scram !"

" Now...where on earth did she vanish ?"

" Aha...there you are !"

" Do I jump and get away from all this ?"

" God...what a pain this guy is !"

" Phew...almost there!"

" Maaan...that was one exhausting chase ! Why couldn't she slow down !!??"

" This guy needs to be taught a lesson."

" Hmmm...what should be my move ?"

WHAT ??? After all that anticipation...you two go off to sleep NOW ????

How boring :)


We waited for a long time but both seemed rather deep in slumber...and when we returned the female was nowhere to be seen.


So....there was a lot that we had no clue about.


Was the male chasing the female to mate ?


Or was he just chasing her away from the kill, not wanting to share his meal ?


How did it finally get resolved ?


Did she walk away ? Was this allowed to walk away ? Did they actually mate when we were away !!!


Is he sad and lonesome ? Or is he relieved at being alone ? We will never know


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1 Comment


Just fantastic! The backlit images look gorgeous.

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