With winter storm Hercules being the first big storm to hit New England in 2014, two mere days into the New Year, it only seems appropriate that I share another image from my Polar Bear Gallery, portraying two Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) play-fighting in a snow storm near Hudson Bay, in Canada’s Manitoba province: if you live in an affected area, stay warm! 🙂
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Clicks & Corks 
That’s an amazing picture! Great job!
Thank you very much, Julie!
Glad you liked it 🙂
Oh wow, what a FANTASTIC capture!! I’m super impressed! Bravo Stefano 😀
Grazie, Camilla! 🙂
I am very happy that you liked it 🙂
So if I hadn’t read your post, I wouldn’t have known that we’re in the midst of a Herculean storm. Great photo. As always.
You are way too young to know about this cartoon–here’s the Hercules I grew up watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEHeqz-zbwM
Thank you, Tracy!
I enjoyed watching the cartoon, which – you are right, I was not familiar with. Thanks for sharing it 🙂
A very fitting picture for the first winter storm! Even here in Michigan we are getting a couple inches of sow today. Stay warm and safe!
Thank you, Heather!
Hope all has been well with you guys during those freezing days!
Fantastic capture!
Thank you very much, Sofia!
Glad you liked it 🙂
What a great picture! How lucky you are to be able to see these things through your lens.
Thank you very much, Julia: glad you liked it! 🙂
And yes, observing polar bears in the wild is cool, both literally and figuratively! 😉
Love it! Hot tea on me 🙂
Thank you, Dana: it’s a deal then! 😉
Hope you are warm and safe as the storm hits the east coast. As always Stefano great capture. 😉
Thank you very much, B: it has been a few of seriously cold days, but we have managed just fine 🙂
Also, glad you liked the image 🙂
Have a great weekend!
One amazing shot! Beauty.
Thank you very much, Ayesha!
Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Dear Stefano, dear Francesca,
we hope very much you are fine, warm, and cozy. We saw some pictures from your area in the news looked like a winter`s day in Northern Scandinavia. Well, we keep our fingers crossed for you and Siri and Selma sending lots of warm fairy dust to you.
What an impressive picture! I suppose you had to be quite patient to get this shot – and a good zoom lens. Siri said shivering: “polar bears so near, big fear!” You are her hero now 😉
I don`t know much about the love life of the polar bear but my first association was “mating ritual”. – As you shared this stunning polar bear picture, our Master got the idea why not writing an article on our Fabulous Four blog with him. You know he has his column there about symbols with text and pictures. What do you think about an article about the polar bear? With some pictures of yours (Dina is shouting: “width 1280”) and you and our Master write the text together. Selma is just muttering “that would be the first post without our Master`s funny English.”
We have it quite warm and sunny here, not like winter at all. But we have had quite some gails. As we are used to wild seas and gails we got away fine and we hope you will get away easily as well.
And last not least we all shout over the Atlantic “HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR!”
With lots of love and hugs from
The Fabuloius Four
Kb
Oh dear, sorry about those silly fingers, of course,
The Fabulous Four
Kb has too big fingers (it`s a secret!) and so he got the u and i at the same time. Maybe we, Siri and Selma, should write the comments with our fine fairy fingers 😉
Lots of Love
The Fabulous Four
🙂 🙂 🙂
Dear Klausbernd, Siri and Selma,
Thank you sooo much for your kind comment and apologies if it took me so long to respond: between work and Sofia, there is not much time left for blogging… But I hope things will improve over time.
Temperatures here have been pretty frigid (the only one who appears not to care is Sofia!), but the worse should be behind us now and things are definitely fine with us! 🙂
Thank you for your nice words about my photograph – I am also very proud to have undeservedly become Siri’s hero! 😉 Yes, patience, perseverance being out in some seriously cold weather and a long lens were key in getting this image, but a bit of luck also played its role. As a photographer once said “success is when luck meets preparedness” and I think there is much truth in it.
I see how these bears’ behavior may resemble a mating ritual, but it was not: polar bears mate in the spring, while this image was taken in late fall. The bears were actually play-fighting, which is a common behavior used to refine hunting skills or, in juveniles, to teach self defense.
I would LOVE and be honored to help you write an article on polar bears and contribute the images to illustrate it! Thank you very much for thinking of me for this great project. Feel free to email me at your convenience so we can start discussing how to structure the work. This is very exciting! 🙂
Happy New Year to all of you, dear Fabulous Four, and thank you once again for all your kindness and friendship! 🙂
Stefano
Dear Stefano,
just a short note because life has became quite speedy here since the US Army rules our beach and occupied our visitor centre (of the Cley Bird Reserve). And just in this bird reserve a helicoper of the US Army crashed and unfortunately 4 young soldiers died. We blogged about this yesterday. We are fine, actually the whole village is fine because the crash took place on a remote beach.
Dear Stefano, I feel honoured that we will write this article together. I will email you about the polar bear article but not before the US Army left here – it probably will take a week.
A HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and your family
The Fabulous Four
Kb
Dear Klausbernd,
What an awful tragedy! I am sorry to hear that, but relieved that you guys are doing fine.
As to our little project, absolutely take all the time you need, there is no rush whatsoever. I am very excited at the idea of putting this together!
Have a wonderful weekend, dear Fabulous Four! 🙂
Stefano
Fantastic image!
Thank you very much, Elena! Glad you liked it 🙂
I cannot even begin to imagine how long you must have waited for this shot. Your perseverance and persistence and patience always impress me. You are a lucky man, my friend, to have that gift of being content and patient. The result is stunning, as always.
Very impressive photo. What a rewarding work you have! Thanks for sharing!
Lots of things to like about this photo and the snow adds just the right touch.