Today’s post is a plunge into Polar Bear pictures and facts.
Although polar bears are usually solitary, a group of polar bears is called a Celebration.
I plan to celebrate the new year by taking a quick plunge into Lake Washington – aka a Polar Bear Plunge.
A polar bear can swim for days at a time. It uses its big front paws as paddles and the back paws as a rudder.
Polar bears are the largest land carnivores on earth.
They can smell prey from great distances.
They spend half of their life searching for food.
The D’Aulaire’s Book of Animals is an accordion book showing animals of the north and south. The front of the accordion is in color and shows the animals facing forward. The back is in black and white and shows the same animals from behind.
Polar bears have black skin. Their fur is hollow and it is not white – it is translucent. But it looks white because it reflects light.
The study of polar bears was instrumental in Darwin’s development of evolutionary theory. You can read about it here in the Public Domain Review.
Are you still hungry for more about polar bears? If so, please click this link to see lovely, lonely photos of bears in Siberia, taken by Dmitry Kokh.
Happy New Year to everyone as we plunge into 2023!
Please share in the comment section how you plan to mark the new year, or any random bear thoughts. Thank you.
Julie Paschkis
annadaltona
Bonny Becker
Julie Paschkis
Julie Larios
laurakvasnosky
Margaret Chodos-Irvine
Books Around The Table 
Love this post! Don’t forget the armoured bears from His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Wonderful fantasy novels and the new TV series is excellent.
I loved the books and the whole concept of the daemons. I will have to check out the TV series!
What a coincidence! Yesterday our neighbor Bob Faucher’s polar bear photo, “Following Mom,” was chosen by the staff of Outdoor Photographer Magazine (OP) as the Photo Of The Day. Another image for your polar bear collection:
https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/blog/photo-of-the-day-by-bob-faucher-36/
Congratulations to him!
…I can’t get the link to work but I will try again later.
Good question, how will I mark this threshold? I hope there won’t be big things to bear or bare. I want more sun and less dark.
Here, hear!
This is lovely! I just finished reading Journey of the The Pale Bear by Susan Fletcher. I think you would love it.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Journey-of-the-Pale-Bear/Susan-Fletcher/9781534420786
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Thanks for the tip. I hadn’t heard of this book. It looks like a good adventure.
Lovely illustrations! Beautiful polar bears are a perfect New Year post.
Thanks!
Thank u for this beautiful polar bear post. I especially love your paper cuts! I plan to continue enjoying retirement in the new year & read read read!
Cathy Bonnell
That sounds like a good plan. I just started A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley and I’m enjoying it.
Reading your post on Polar Bears I realize that I, too, have certainly spent half my life (if not more) in search of food! With that in mind, a “Celebration” seems such an apt description of their–and our!– get togethers. Here’s to a Polar Bear Plunge into 2023! Brrrr……
Ha!
Yes
I plan to execute !
Not ramble or scramble
Through the tangled woods
Being 80 is crazy
So is the idea of falling through the ice
Ice Cream You Scream We all scream for Ice Cream luminescent polar bear ICE CREAM
with a berry on top PLEASE
I’ve plunged before and it is crazily wildly exhilarating. Yes we all scream!
Wow, beautiful!!!
In Seward Alaska, there is a Polar Bear plunge in Resurrection Bay. You don’t want to know what temperatures they do it at. Also in December, there is a polar Bear plunge in anchorage. You also don’t want to hear how cold it is outside usually.
I’m prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to protect both, workers and polar bears, there is a cage upon each working area exit. You stop inside the cage before going to your vehicle to make sure there is no bear around. It’s their land, they roam around all the time.
Wow! Those are true polar plunges.
…If someone sees a bear do they just stay in the cage?
LOVE your papercuts! Have a beary happy new year. 🙂
Thanks, Jama!
We sometimes walk with toddler grandchildren and one of our neighbors has … for no reason at all, 10-20 small polar bear figures in his traffic strip. Our youth have pretended with the “polars” as we call them for years now. Feeding them tea, putting them to nap, and letting the younger bears climb on their parents.
I just saw this message – it was hibernating in a folder. Who knew there were polar bears at large in Seattle!
Polar bears have such strong charisma. Have you seen Candace Fleming’s new PB called Polar Bear? Illustrated by Eric Rohrmann. It’s wonderful. Am thinking it will be a contender for a Sibert and Caldecott. Happy New Year!
It is a beautiful book – hope the judges bear it in mind.
Your site is absolutely exhilarating! Thank you!j