If you’re a bear, a meandering hiker, or a wildlife guide it doesn’t matter you eagerly await the arrival of late summer berries. The numbers of berries in Jackson Hole is incredible and it seems like I continually learn about new patches and thus get new places to search for the must berry loving of all animals the bears! For the short list off the top of my head we have; currents, gooseberries, twin-berry (honeysuckle), buffalo berry, bearberry, hawthorn berry, alder-leaved buckthorn, snowberries, choke cherries, salmon berries, whortle berries, grouse whortle berries, service berries, and of course huckleberries. (Naturalist notes goal: try to photograph and or sketch all of these).
More than just the return of the bears after the heat of summer I enjoy berry season because it is an exercise in reading landscapes and climate patterns. Different berries mast in different years depending on weather conditions that year. It’s a sweeter, subtler, California super bloom. Each berry bush, and how interesting that there are no herbaceous berry producing plants, clues to the evolutionary history perhaps, grows in only particular terrain. Some only occur on the north facing slopes of mountains, others only in the wet boggy regions cultivated by beavers.
Knowing where, when, and in what abundance these berries are is a huge clue that helps wildlife enthusiasts like myself to find animals and bears in particular. As I continue to grow as a naturalist this local knowledge has become invaluable to my ability guide.