The last time I visited Orsa Björnpark, I bought an annual ticket because I visit the place a few times a year anyway. It figures that it’s right after that when I decide to move so far away that there will be no more visits! So I thought I would squeeze out one last visit to get some value out of the ticket, even if April otherwise isn’t an ideal month to visit a zoo. Ugly melting snow, ’nuff said.

Speaking of snow, I got quite a surprise already when I was driving towards Loos. It hasn’t been many years, but I’ve already forgotten that it’s a different climate up there. So much more snow on the ground, it was weird driving through that with summer tires on because it started to feel almost like winter. By the time I reached Koppången, it definitely felt like winter – the snow cover was at least 50cm thick and I saw skiers take advantage of the conditions. Something I’ve been meaning to do like for 10 years now… Koppången is probably the best cross country skiing outside the mountains in the month of April.

Anyway, the zoo then. I got to see a lot of animals (even the brown bears had come out from hibernation), but just about everyone was sleeping. The snow leopard didn’t lose its spot (geddit? leopard losing spots, ha ha ha) during the three hours I was there, it just slept on the platform. The Persian leopard was out and about but wouldn’t stop anywhere photogenic so I had to resort to some extreme processing to keep the chain link fence from showing too ugly in the pictures.

There was some activity though… the polar bears. The polar bear mating season is in May-June but it seems like the male bear wants to get some action already, it was following the female around like a shadow. But my best photo opportunity came when the female bear lay down to sleep by the open water and delighted me with a reflection.

The highlight of the visit though, happened when both of the bears were attracted by a tractor which came up to the enclosure to do some work. The bears sat right next to the fence and I stood less than two meters from them. While the bears were transfixed by the tractor, I was spellbound by these magnificent creatures. The moment lasted a few minutes and when I left, I was determined that one day I will have to see a polar bear in the wild. Magic.