These are by no stretch of the imagination great eagle shots.  They are eagle shots and I’m glad to have them.  Some of the technical issues, I was shooting at ISO 400 with a shutter speed of around 1/1000 @ f8.0  The wind was blowing hard and I was so cold I was literally shaking (hence the softer, than I like them, images.)

I was on my way out-of-town headed to Monticello yesterday for a meeting.  When I crossed the bridge of the Maquoketa River I noticed a half-dozen eagles sitting in a barren tree that was close to the water.  There were another half-dozen flying over the river and the harvested corn field.  I had never seen a single eagle there before let alone over a dozen or more.  Once I got the vehicle parked I had to walk about 50 yards back to where I could get a decent shot of them.  It didn’t take long for my face and hands to start burning from the cold and the wind was blowing so hard it was very difficult to hold the camera anything close to steady.

To top it off I was shooting into the sun, which of course made matters worse.  So all in all I’m lucky to have captured even these poor quality images.  Most of the eagles I saw were juveniles.  Even this guy looks to be in the transition phase of his life, not quite a mature eagle yet.

Believe it or not, even though I racked off 90 images at the bridge and sat in the vehicle several minutes warming up I still made it to my meeting on time.  🙂

I have shot this old rural one room school-house before but never from this angle.  Same problem as with the eagles.  It was windy and very cold and difficult to hold the camera still.  My tripod was in my personal car so I didn’t have anything to steady the camera.

That’s all for today.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  I hope you enjoy your Friday.  They are special you know.  Be careful.