Once while paddling a canoe on the Wekiva River in central Florida I drifted around a bend and surprised a daydreaming bear as he sat drowsily on the riverbank with his eyes closed.

The bear was totally oblivious of my presence and there we were, no more than ten or fifteen feet apart when he opened his eyes and saw me.

That bear had an expression on his face that was priceless, and what a time to be without a camera,

And just in case you are wondering, when surprised a bear can move extremely fast.
This bear was extremely surprised.

He swapped ends and made a mad dash for the woods moving so fast it seemed that his feet weren’t touching the ground and as he was moving he was getting lighter with each bound due to the stuffing being scared out of him, if you know what I mean.

He had another surprise in store for him.

As he fled he glanced over his shoulder at me and ran full tilt into a small longleaf pine tree about six inches in diameter.

That tree shook with the impact and the bear was knocked backward onto his broad bear bottom.

He shook his head and sat there somewhat befuddled for a moment staring at the tree and then wandered off without another glance in my direction. It was very obvious that his tree encounter had made him forget all about me.

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