The Opportunist

The seagull arrived the moment the bear settled into the river - which is how it always goes in Alaska in late summer. I was on foot along the bank when this bear waded in to fish, and within moments the gulls appeared overhead, as reliably as if they had been waiting in the wings. They have learned that bears mean fish, and fish means scraps, and so wherever one finds a bear fishing, one finds gulls in attendance, circling at a respectful altitude until something worth diving for presents itself. This gull had come in close - very close - its wings spread wide in the golden afternoon light above the bear's broad head.

The bear, for its part, appeared indifferent. It had been in this river long enough to know that the gulls are not a threat and not worth the energy of acknowledgment. It watched the water. The gull watched the bear. I watched both of them, waiting for the light to do what the light was about to do - that particular warm gold that late afternoon produces on the Alaskan coast before the sun drops below the hills.

The Opportunist is a story about coexistence - about the economy of the salmon run, where nothing goes to waste and every species finds its role in the abundance. The gull isn't the villain of this image; it's simply doing what it's built to do, in perfect light, above a bear that has seen it all before. It is a scene that plays out a thousand times each August in Alaska, and somehow never grows old.