Upde Designs

Happy Sunday!
I had one of the best Saturday’s in recent memory yesterday and had a lot of fun.  I had a 10:00 a.m. appointment with John the barber as I was getting pretty shaggy.  Jeanne decided to go with me as there was a little shop downtown that she wanted to visit.  Turns out it was closed so she just waited in the car and cleaned out her email files on her phone for the 20 minutes it took for my haircut.

Even though the sky was gray and therefore not the best shooting conditions we decided to go to the river and see if there were any wildlife hanging around.  I had mentioned to Jeanne that I was going to look for a Spring/Fall jacket and she said as long as we’re this close to Graham’s Clothing why not stop in.  I got a nice sport jacket for 1/4 its original price and a great casual jacket and when I started to pay Jeanne said, you buy lunch and I’ll get this. 🙂

Okay, now for the image above.  We were on our way to the river when I saw three eagles sitting on the old FDL Packing ground.  After much maneuvering we were able to get close enough to get this shot of one of the three juvenile eagles.  They were fishing out of the small creek that runs by that area.  I had the ISO set to 400 and shot most of these images at either 1/640 sec / 1/1250 sec depending on the light @ f8.0.  I used the Nikon D600 with the Nikon 80 – 400 mm V2 lens.  You can see it turns the sky almost pure white but that lets you see the detail of the bird’s feathers so it’s a trade-off.  You can click on the images for a larger version.

We then went to the lock and dam to see what was going on there.  As we suspected there was almost no open water except close to the dam and that area was bordered by ice fishermen.  There was a lone eagle sitting in a tree, so we were ready to leave when the eagle took flight.  I got out and walked across to the fence.  Spread the strands of wires and stuck my lens through (I got a few scratches on my lens barrel)  to get this shot.  You’re worth the effort. 🙂

After this we went to the 16th Street basin where there were a variety of wildlife and I got some great shots (that I’ll share during the coming week.) I actually got one of my best eagle shots ever at the basin yesterday.

We had a light lunch at home because the kids called and wanted to stop over for some DQ.  Ben had not been able to see the Phantom fly so we flew both of them (not at the same time.)  I won’t bore you with the video.  It’s our same neighborhood and I just basically went up flew around a little and then landed it.  No crashes on either Phantom.   🙂

After that a nice nap and then we did a little more shopping.  Had dinner at McDonald’s,   😦

I know, McDonald’s,  but everywhere we wanted to eat there was a 25 / 60 minute wait.  We don’t like to wait.  So there was more to the day then my brief synopsis but it was a very fun day spent with my best friend and we got to see the kids and grand kids so it doesn’t get much better than that.

Oh then we watched Gravity on Mediacom’s on-demand feature.  Spent $4.99 for a movie that I would have really hated to spend $25.00 for at the theater.

That’s it for today.  If you have time check out the blog this week.  I will have some (I think) nice images for your viewing pleasure.  Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your day and be careful.