Going on a bear hunt!
Tomorrow sees myself and Andy, along with our brilliant group of guests, returning to Finland to hopefully get ourselves lots of pictures of bears with cubs. We will be doing this by staying overnight in the hides maximising the short nights that northern Finland gets at this time of year. Essentially our time with the bears will start towards the end of the day when the sunlight is less harsh and continue until the light is gone. Then it will be a brief sleep and at around dawn (a hideous 2.30 am) we will carry on with the new light. Now whilst I have done overnight bears before in Sweden this will be the first time for me in summer, focussing on adults with cubs. Specifically I will be hoping to get enough video footage for my popular Creature Features Travel Diaries series (available on Patreon) and hopefully some really good behaviour and interactions between the adult and cubs. It will also give me a little more practise using the Sony system - ready for the real challenge of hummingbirds in Ecuador.
Now it’s going to be a few days before we get to the hides thanks to Finnair and some last minute flight changes… it wouldn’t be international travel without the challenges… but I am certain that the bears will be worth the wait! Now we hope to be able to update the blog whilst we are there and tell you about some of the experiences that we have - but in short we are hoping for something a bit like this…
How lovely is this! Bear cubs in Finland are typically born in January or February - yes Finnish brown bears hibernate, so this does mean that the cubs are born whilst the female is hibernating. Each litter is typically 1-2 cubs but litters can be 3, or even 4 bears! The cubs stay in the den until about March time when both the mother and the cubs emerge in search of food. This means that the summer months are all about growing and gaining and replacing weight. Bears feed on all sorts of things being omnivorous; so berries, insects, fish, birds and small mammals will all feature in a bear’s diet.
As well as females and cubs, we will of course also get some visits from male bears. The are much bigger than the females and can travel several hundred kilometres in a fairly short time, unlike the females with cubs who tend to have fairly well established territories. This means that it is entirely possible that we will see the same individuals each day. According to our local guides the sighting have been really good so hopefully we are in for a real treat! What I am absolutely not looking forward to are the dreaded Finnish midges! Although they do help to create some fantastic backlit images as seen below, so maybe they aren’t all that bad…. although (whisper it) they don’t seem to like me as much as Andy! Wish us luck!
