Upde Designs

I think I got the date right today.  Both Monday and Tuesday I had the wrong date on the blog.  Just wishful thinking on my part I guess, trying to hurry the week along.  🙂

There is no question about it, I love eagles.  I love to watch them, photograph them, and read about them.  I went out on my lunch break yesterday to see if I could catch sight of some of the eagles that have been fishing in the Maquoketa River.  It was bitterly cold and the wind was blowing fiercely so there was little opportunity to photography anything let alone eagles.

As I sat there in front of my computer last night thinking about what to show you today I reasoned that eagle images are eagle images no matter when they were taken.  So these images were taken last year around February near Guttenburg, Iowa.  They are still my images taken by me so a little age on them doesn’t hurt anything as long as there is no mold.

The first image is heavily cropped but I like the vibrant colors of the eagle.  The image above is not cropped much at all as this juvenile flew over the top of where I was standing on his way to his favorite tree to eat his bounty.  It’s fun to watch mature eagles and juveniles together.  The juvenile will often miss more fish then they will catch and many times resort to trying to steal the fish of another eagle.

An interesting trait of eagles is that when they catch a fish they will look down at their catch to judge the size.  If it is small enough to eat on the fly they prefer to do that because they are assured of a meal.  If the fish is big enough like the one in the second photo and this one then they have to protect it until they can get some where to eat it.  Then likely as not a juvenile will attempt to steal it from them anyway.

I’m hoping to find some fresh eagles this weekend.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.