Upde Designs

Happy Saturday!

If you have read the last few posts about my photography experience at Lock and Dam #14 in LeClaire, Iowa then you know that I have lamented about the lousy shooting conditions (weather wise) the two days I was there.  Well yesterday was like a day in paradise.  The sun was out, the temperature wasn’t bitterly cold and the eagles were flying.

There were a lot of photographers there and even a couple of buses came in after I was there but I found a spot on the observation deck that although not perfect for the angle of the sun was pretty close to perfect.  I was supposed to meet my friend Andreas at the dam but his work prevented him from coming as I leaned from his text while standing on the lock walkway.  I know he was disappointed.

I did run into my friend Burt Gearhart and had a nice visit with him.  He is very helpful and shares a lot of his knowledge about the lock and dam and photographing eagles.  Google his name and you’ll see a lot of great eagle images.

Other than the time that I had the up close and personal experience with the eagle on the highway a couple of years ago (Click Here To View) I have never been so close to eagles and certainly not while they were flying.  There were times it felt like I could reach up and touch them.  More than once I took my eye out of the camera just to appreciate the beauty of them flying (more like floating) overhead.

Trying to follow this eagle from attack approach to capture of the fish proved to be a challenge for me.  I was a little slow and low on this shot but wanted to show it because I wanted to show the moment of capture.  🙂

So I took 1,606 images and as I write the blog this morning I have not yet been through them all.  Just too many to evaluate and it was busy when I got home so by the time I got the images loaded on my computer it was just too late to look through them.  The images I’m showing today were the first ones out of the camera.

With the fish securely in his talons he is off to the feeding trees to eat his catch.  There were a lot of fish in the water at one time over 5 fish floating and several eagles in the trees but they didn’t seem all that interested.  More about the floating fish in a later post.

You can probably imagine that with that many images you’re probably going to see a lot of eagle images on this blog for a while.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Remember you can click on the images to make them larger.

Enjoy your day and be careful.