You read that right; it's not cute wordplay or anything. I quite legitimately almost patted a bear's bum companionably while walking the trails behind my house.
Right, so with that clarified, let me share a day of pictures of the black bears in my area. Spring and summer here in beautiful British Columbia, Canada is a bonanza for them. The grass is tender, there are buds on everything (insert obligatory BC weed 420lyfe joke here,) and the berries are ripening. I don't live in a hermit cabin in the woods or anything — just lucky enough to be surrounded by mountains on one side, a protected nature reserve on another, and river along the third.
Life is good.
My little chunk of suburbia transitions from housing to thicket pretty abruptly. About three minutes away, you can be in a chunk of forest that's carefully contained between a stretch of highway and the sprawl of planned communities. It's heaven for walking the dogs. As such, I actually run in to bears a lot. Like, way more than you'd think. I ran a 10k race in our city last week, and the announcer actually went over bear safety before the starting gun.
Murphy spends a lot of time snuffling around the brush. He's like an anteater on crack, but who also has the legs of a cheetah.
Case in point:
So when he goes blazing up the trail like his tail in on fire, I don't think too much of it. He's fast as shit, but admittedly, it's a good thing he's pretty, because sometimes he is... well, my boy ain't velociraptor smart, anyways. By the time I usually catch up with him, he's just a tiny hump of fuzzy butt, sticking out of a stump or a bush or down an embankment. He has, for the record, a blackish fuzzy butt.
When I heard a rustle in the bush beside me, I put out my hand to pat Murph absentmindedly and instead I got a snort and all of the bracken flattened towards me as a BEAR spun around and charged onto the path. I know what to do. I know to hold my ground, get big, wave my arms, all that. I'm not going to drag this out — I did all the proper things; I just happened to do them after I yelped and ran fifteen feet. IT'S FAIR, OKAY? Bears are hella big. Disclaimer: this bear is not that bear — I give bears their space. Because getting mauled, and all that.
So why the Steemit shout-out in the title, if this is full of pictures of hilariously fuzzy and slightly confused bears just chilling and berserker dogs approaching lightspeed? Well, because thanks is in order. I am a content person. I love writing, taking photos; grabbing your face and making my eyes your eyes. (What a horrible mental picture...) I know that the people who curate my stuff are the ones who have a direct hand in my success.
Just know, as a tiny (minnow-tiny) thank-you, that I don't upvote my pieces when I upload them, to try to make sure the people who take a chance on me get the biggest payouts.
The amazing thing about Steemit is that if we succeed, we succeed together.
Otherwise, I'm happy to send you an original print, if you like!
All of these photos are my own, taken on my travels all over this pretty blue marble of ours. I hope you like them.
Whoa, glad you're alive to tell us about it. And nice pictures of the bear.
PS, we also have lots of bears in downtown Vancouver, but they are of a different variety ;-)
LOLOLOLOL Davies Street Joke 🚨
To be fair they are mostly all delightful, and will only eat you up if you meet certain criteria.
LMAO. Murphy Rocks!
Those bears look great! Got to admit, being from the UK, the chance to pat a fuzzy bear ass just does not exist, unless you go to the Zoo of course!
Great article and I look forward to the next awesome read!
P.S my eyes are your eyes, lol
GIVE ME YOUR EYES
NO REASON
Here's looking at ya...
JESUS FUCK.
nightmare fuel
Haha, great story. I love your humour & your way of writing. Upvoted 🌻
Thank you so much! To be fair, I have another set of photos where I ran into another bear just heading for a swim, and THE SHADE that he shot me as he crossed in front of me in a huff back to the forest. My god...sassy ass bears
Hahah I can imagine!! I'd love to see a bear i the wild though, no bears in Australia unfortunately.. Well koala bears but I don't think they compare.
Just upvoted your intro post & followed you 🌻 looking forward to more posts.
UM
everything in your country wants to MURDER YOU. THat practically puts you at bear tier. I also feel like a roo could punch out a bear?
keeping an eye on you now, and happy to see your creative writing as well!
Hahaha you know what all the times I've spent in the bush/country I've never come across anything dangerous (maybe I'm just lucky?)
But kangaroos are bad ass!!
Thank you 🌻
You're like a female Canadian Crocodile-Dundee
There are pictures of me with a large manta ray from when I was backpacking around the Caribbean, somewhere. So far, so good; no animal stab wounds and most organs still inside my body.
awesome photos. wildlife can be so hard and takes so much patients. hats off to you and your pup!
It really does help when you're constantly wandering into them, lol. It's not like the foxes, where I had to wait a year for them to have babies again :/ thanks!
thank you for sharing
and thanks for taking the time to say something. It means a lot :D
hey crimsonclad loved ur article, take a look at mine you might like it https://steemit.com/nature/@whitedolphin/nature-wisdom-a-message-from-the-orang-utans
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