Bald Eagles

All posts tagged Bald Eagles

Friday ~ March 05, 2021

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 5, 2021
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

Happy Friday!

Yesterday I had lunch with a good Friend down in Bellevue, Iowa.  I hadn’t seen him in more than a year (mainly because of Covid) so it was great to catch up.

After lunch I headed back to Dubuque and got about 3 miles out of town when I thought, gosh I’m only 9 miles from Green Island, why not go to the wildlife preserve and see if anything is around.

I had some reservations about going there since my vehicle was pretty clean and I knew what the conditions would be like in Green Island.  But what the heck.

When I got to the preserve it was much worse than I thought.  The roads were still heavily snow covered and muddy.  Well in for a penny in for a pound.  So, I put it in 4-wheel drive and ventured into the muck.

I didn’t see much of anything except the ubiquitous Canada geese but nothing else.  When I got to the end of the road, I saw more eagles in the trees then I can ever remember.  Of course, they scattered and took off before I could get off a shot.

I decided to use my vehicle as a blind and just turned off the engine rolled down the window and sat.  I sat for almost an hour and slowly some of them came back to the trees and to the fish one was in the middle of eating.

I’m going to show you more eagle pictures than you probably want to see but I couldn’t help myself.  It wasn’t as much fun as photographing them catching fish or flying over water but hey, they are eagles and I’ll take an eagle’s picture any day of the week.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thursday ~ March 15, 2018

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 15, 2018
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

Happy Thursday!

I had lunch with a dear Friend yesterday and as I was on my way to that lunch this guy just happen to fly in front of my lens.  🙂

Actually I saw him in a small clearing near some woods, finishing up a meal and after about 20 minutes of me being there he decided it was time to seek some solitude.

So I have lots of shots of him eating (they are boring) and I didn’t think I would get a sharp image of him because of all the trees and clutter but I got lucky.

You can click on the image to get a larger more detailed image.

I love eagles!

Enjoy your day.

Tuesday ~ February 07, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 7, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

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Happy Tuesday!

I finally made it to Lock and Dam #14 yesterday.  I left home with high hopes as the sun was shinning but when I arrived at the dam I only saw 4 cars in the parking lot, which told me the eagles were not going to be very active.  That prediction was correct.

I have three images for you today, however most of the action took place father away from the observation platform and so I couldn’t really get any close up shots of the eagles.

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I captured this image just before he put his talons in the water.  I was a little early with the shot but he snuck up on me and so it was just a rapid spray of images.  He didn’t get a fish from this effort so I didn’t feel too bad.

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I have this image of an eagle that was successful with his fishing but I didn’t get a shot of him with his talons in the water.

I only stayed at the dam for a couple of hours.  Other photographers came after I arrived and left before me.  Even the few diehards were discussing their departure when I packed it in.

The good news is there were other critters to photograph and they were much closer so I’ll hopefully have those for your tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Friday ~ January 27, 2017

Posted by Dave Updegraff on January 27, 2017
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , .

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Happy Friday!

I don’t remember how long it’s been since we had sunshine in this part of the world but I do know it’s been way too long.  I have three images for you today that were taken yesterday against a featureless gray sky in the middle of a snow shower.

So those are pretty difficult conditions to take images of moving subjects with a long lens and expect great results.

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I had an all day event to attend yesterday and I left home about 30 minutes earlier than needed because a good friend of mine had told me of a gathering of eagles near a farm.  Since it was on the way to my event I thought I would take a chance and hope I could find some eagles.

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I would much rather photograph this majestic bird in brilliant sunlight against a watery background in the process of catching fish.  However, that being said an eagle is an eagle and they are still majestic no matter what they are doing.  🙂

There were more than 30 eagles congregated at this table and like any family gathering there were squabbles and seating disagreements.  But on the whole they were behaving reasonably.

Hope you enjoyed the images.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Thursday ~ December 29, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 29, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

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Happy Thursday!

I have my three favorite eagle images from 2016 for you today.  I have shown these before last January but since we are near the end of the year, a look back won’t hurt anything. 🙂

Speaking of end of the year, in my world it is the busiest time of the year, with all the federal reports and testing that has to be done.  Numbers aren’t my favorite thing as can be imagined so it is a struggle sometimes.   However, I am so thankful for the opportunity to do what I enjoy so much.

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As I think back over the year from a photography viewpoint I have trouble deciding which I like best.  I love photographing people and creating portraits but I also love photographing eagles (especially) and other forms of wildlife.  I added some new light modifiers this year that help me achieve the look I want in my portraits but there was one modifier that was missing.  Thankfully Jeanne got that for me as a Christmas gift.  I can’t wait to experiment with it.

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One of the highlights of the year was the class I took in Nashville, Tennessee.  Meeting the great Joe McNally and Bill Fortney, learning new things and making new friends was a real treat.  The fact that Jeanne, Angie, Ben, and the grand kids came along was a real blessing.

I haven’t had a camera in my hand since Christmas Eve and I didn’t shoot much then, so I’m anxious to get out and see if there are things out there that need to be photographed.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ December 10, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 10, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , , .

december-08-2016

Happy Saturday!

I have three images for you today.  I must have a thousand or more images of eagles sitting on a tree branch, but when I see one I have to photograph it.  I was down at the Lock & Dam #11 in Dubuque to see if any eagles were fishing.  They were not but there were 20 or more in the trees by the Lock and Dam.  That’s the most eagles I’ve seen by the dam in a very long time.

That is exciting because it means it won’t be much longer and I’ll head a little South of here to do some eagle photography in LeClaire.  🙂

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Come to think of it I have thousands of images of Ring-Billed Gulls and Canadian Geese as well.  Same problem, when I see them I feel compelled to photograph them.  I need to do some traveling and experience some new scenery.  🙂

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My wife and my Friend Betty both love geese and there were hundreds of them at the 16th Basin and at Buck’s Branch yesterday so I had my pick.  I started following this couple right after they swam out from under the bridge on 16th Street.  They were pretty far apart but came within inches of running into each other.  I mean maybe an inch as they were watching me the entire time.

That’s it for today.  We are supposed to get a major snow storm this weekend.  Jeanne and I have a Christmas party to go to out-of-town and we will be watching the radar this afternoon.  There was a time when it didn’t matter what the weather was we were out among them.  A lot older and a tiny bit wiser has made me much more cautious.

Enjoy your day.  Stay warm and be careful.

 

Tuesday ~ November 29, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on November 29, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

november-28-2016

Happy Tuesday!

I have three images for you today.  The first eagle images of the season.  Even though the weather was lousy for photography I decided to go out and see what I could find.

What I found was a few eagles sitting around the Lock and Dam in the trees.  None of them were fishing while I was there but there were a couple of them flying over the park.  I had to shoot at a high ISO (7200) and with the gray sky most of the shots were heavily back-lit so it made it difficult to get any quality shots.  Still these are eagles and I will never pass up a chance to photograph eagles no matter the conditions.  🙂

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This reminded me of a married couple.  Even with my hearing impairment I could hear the eagle on the left screeching.  As the other eagle finally came to the tree where she was, the screeching intensified.  I’m guessing he was in trouble for something  🙂

An interesting story to tell, which again shows why I love photography so much.  After yesterday’s post I received a text message from my good friend Rick.  He was commenting on the barge image and said that he knew the guy who was piloting the helper tug.  He wondered if I would mind if he sent him a copy of the image.   I told him if his buddy would email me I would send him the high-resolution original image and he could print it to whatever size he wanted.

When I got home there was an email from Jeremy, the tug boat Captain.  He thanked me for the image and invited me to come along and ride with him and photograph a locking process.  WOW!  What an opportunity.  Hope to get that done before the barge traffic ends for the season.

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I took a lot of images but there were very few that I would even process.  It was raining intermittently as well so it was not a day for outdoor photography.

That’s it for today.  Back to work for me.  I enjoyed the 5 days off.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

 

Friday ~ March 25, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 25, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

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Happy Friday / Good Friday!

I have four images for you today that I’m showing because they tell a story and not for their image quality.  I have saved these images for sometime now because I didn’t want to embarrass the eagle.  🙂

So as you view the first image (which was taken at the 16th Street Basin) you can see there is ice on the water.  This eagle had been up rooted from his sitting place by a larger eagle and so he was moving to a new spot.  He clearly thinks he is landing on another patch of “solid” ice.    This was the last day, by the way, that there was ice on Basin.

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This is that “Oh damn” moment when he breaks through the ice and sinks deep into the water.

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It all happened so quickly I didn’t have a chance to feel concern for him and you can see, as he sinks deeper his powerful wings are providing some lift to extricate him from his predicament.

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Free of the water and with his pride still in tact he flies off to another area, probably to the river where no one knows of his faux pas.  How do I know that this is a male eagle?  Simple a female eagle would have never made such a silly mistake.  🙂

I had an interesting experience yesterday.  Normally when I don’t have a lunch meeting or someone to go to lunch with I will grab my camera, get a quick bite to eat and go looking for images.  It was a nasty weather day yesterday with freezing rain and wet snow showers, so I didn’t take my camera with me.   After eating a quick-lunch I drove out to the “Duck Pond”  just to watch the geese (that’s all there is there right now) and to clean out my center console looking for my binoculars.  I hadn’t been there very long when a car pulled over in front of me to park.  I didn’t even glance up but I was aware that a person was approaching the driver’s side of my car.

They knocked on my window and when I looked up it was my good friend Andreas.  He was on his way home from a business trip in Chicago.  He saw my car from the highway and made an unscheduled stop.  We had a wonderful conversation for about 30 minutes and got caught up on what each of us had been doing.  It made my afternoon.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.