Polar Scene

Throughout the Arctic seasons the moon, no matter what phase, rarely sets but makes a low pass in the north as it circles the sky.

In this delicate scene the rising moon competes with twilight as a Polar Bear sow with twin cubs tucked into her right take a moment.

The gulls keep their distance as they are sometimes caught & become a snack for the white bears though it is the Bowhead Whale harvests that attract the bears.

Polar Bears are nocturnal and will laze around like ‘cats’ during daylight hours but become most active at twilight through nighttime.

The bears leave shore to hunt food out across the sea-ice during the entire Arctic winter of perpetual darkness, relying only on the stars, the moon or aurora for any light at all.

Folks in the coastal villages of the Arctic are cautiously alert for Polar Bears through the year & have heightened ‘Bear Patrols’ during times of large congregations on shore.

This image was a quite difficult to capture in low light with a telephoto lens while achieving an acceptable soft focus with a quarter million miles between subjects.

Scenes like this & other scenes far more spectacular have certainly occurred in the Arctic through all time…just not many human eyes are out there to witness them!