Over the holiday weekend, Bill and I took some time to head out to the mountains in the Shenandoah National Park and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were hoping to photograph some wildflowers, a sunset and sunrise and Crabtree Falls. We managed most of those – the unexpected treat of the trip was the wildlife.

Usually in Shenandoah NP, we always see lots of deer and turkeys. This trip – we saw lots of deer, including one doe with three fawns at Big Meadow, and a pair of female turkeys with 10 chicks between them.

Every now and then, we’ll actually spot a bear. You’ll notice however – that you’ve not seen many (if any) photos of Shenandoah black bears before this weekend.  As we drove into Shenandoah on Friday, a cute little bear raced across the road and up the hill. He was moving so fast, we had not chance of taking his photo. So we figured – hey – at least we’ve seen a bear this trip.

On our way out of the park on Saturday, we stopped at Elkwallow Wayside. As we were getting back into the car – Bill spotted something dark and fuzzy moving climbing down a tree! It was a bear cub! So he grabbed the camera and headed over to see if he could get a few photos.

There at the base of the tree was an adorable bear cub.

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

Then we spotted a second cub and their mother

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

And then we spotted the third cub! This is the best photo we got of all three cubs – you need to count the ears to see that there really are three cubs

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

As we watched, the cubs started nursing.

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

Bill got several photos of the mother with her cubs

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

Then two of the cubs started to climb back up the tree.

(c) 2009 William Lawrence

While Bill was photographing the bears, I grabbed the second camera, and headed around to the other side of the area where the bears were, hoping to get some photos from a different angle. As I headed up the road, the mother bear and cubs left the area where they were – and crossed the road in front of me.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Here’s the mother bear with one of her cubs, waiting for the third one to catch up.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And then two of the cubs found another tree to climb . . .

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Seeing bears in the wild is always wonderful. This was the first time we’d seen a mother with three cubs. They were incredible to watch. The bears were the highlight of the trip!

Remember – if you do see bears in the National Parks – no matter how cute and cuddly they look – they are wild animals. Don’t get too close to them – and don’t feed them. You don’t want to do anything to provoke the mother bear into feeling like she needs to defend herself and her cubs.

We took all these photos with 100-400mm lenses – most were taken at 400mm. In addition, we cropped the photos to emphasize the bears. We made sure to give the bears lots of space – as did all the other people who were enjoying watching them.