Saturday Surprise — Critter Photography!

Posted on by under animals, Environmental Issues, Humour, Saturday Surprise

Good Saturday morn, my friends!  Today, being rather disgusted with humans in general, we’re going to take a journey into the animal kingdom!  You might want to don your jackets for this one …

Each year, a special event takes place in the Wapusk National  Park in Canada. From mid-February to mid-March, the polar bears reemerge from their caves and winter slumber. Mother bears carefully surface with their four-month-old cubs, so they can take their first steps. This is the first time these little ones get to feel the sun’s warmth, even though its sub-zero temps are enough to keep most humans from making a trek.  With one exception …

Conservation photographer Daisy Gilardini, who specializes in the Polar Regions with a particular emphasis on Antarctic wildlife and North American bears. She is from Switzerland originally, and is now based in Vancouver, Canada.

CHL000267.jpgPolar Bears sparringShe started to take photography seriously following a trip to India in 1989. Since then, she has visited more than 70 countries, camera in hand. She fell in love with Antarctica during her first trip there in 1997. She has since devoted most of her time to photographing the Polar Regions. In 20 years of polar exploration, she has joined more than 80 expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic. Among her accomplishments, she has skied the final degree to the North Pole.

Polar-4Polar Bear cub playingPolar-6During the past 11 years, she has roamed extensively through bear country, from the Great Bear Rainforest in her home province of British Columbia to Alaska and the high Arctic. During the course of her photographic travels she has documented the challenges facing North America’s bears, including the black bear, Kermode, grizzly and polar bear.

Polar Bears huggingPolar Bear mother with cubsPolar Bear mother with cubGilardini’s images have been published internationally in leading magazines such as National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Canadian Geographic, Nature’s Best and Outdoor Photography. Her images have also been used by high-profile NGOs such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, among others.

Potrait of Polar BearPolar Bear mother with cubsCHL000402jpg

And check out this …

But it isn’t only polar bears that Ms. Gilardini photographs.  Her gallery features penguins, seals, brown bears, black bears, and “others”, some of which are rather strange (though not near as strange as those mask-wearing humans these days)!

I love the penguins …

ANE00336penguin-2ANE00603ANE00142penguin-5

And the seals …

White coatANS00436.jpgWhitecoat harp seal pup

Spirit Bears and Black Bears …

black-1Spirit bear on a treeSpirit bear sleeping in the forestSpirit bear closeup

Spirit bear mother with black cub scouting river side in search of dead salmons

Humans could take a lesson from these two!

And a few of the ‘other’ …

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I am fascinated … amazed … at Ms. Gilardini’s skill.  What concentration and patience it must take to capture some of these shots!  If you like these, go check out her website where you’ll find much, much more!  She has an entire African gallery that is great!

Well, folks, that’s a wrap for this morning.  Have a decent weekend … get outdoors and enjoy nature … take some of your own nature photography!

58 thoughts on “Saturday Surprise — Critter Photography!”

  8. Does it surprise you that the Little Mister and myself have followed both Daisy Gilardini and David McEown on Instagram and visited their websites for several years? Daisy’s photographs of Benjamin’s adored polar bears and many other creatures are phenomenal. McEown, a native Canadian, is a gifted watercolorist and I only wish that I owned one of his paintings. This was a marvelous trip enjoyed without the need to leave the confines of my home! Thank-you!

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    • Ha ha … no, it does not surprise me in the least!!! It would not surprise me if you had some of her original photography hanging over your sofa, and that she had sent Benjamin a hand-crafted card! Still, I’m glad you enjoyed the post, and hope that Benjamin will be able to see it at some point!

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    • Thanks dear friend! We are all well and safe, and I’m happy to know you’re still reading my blog! Are you doing better now? I mostly stay off Facebook to preserve my sanity … well, what’s left of it anyway … so I hadn’t heard from you lately. Love you!

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  27. Thank you, Jill. Love penguins, and bears. Watched a grizzly tear apart a dead tree once, to get at all the bugs inside. Could not even imagine how many bugs it takes to make a meal.

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