Photographing Eagles

All posts tagged Photographing Eagles

Tuesday ~ December 20, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 20, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , , .

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Happy Tuesday!

I have one image for you today.  I have around 2,000 images of eagles from last January and February that I have not shown to anyone for a variety of reasons.   2016 was my best year ever for photographing eagles.  I found two places last year that were just spectacular for photographing eagles.  One of course was Lock and Dam 14 at LeClaire and the other was around the Bee Branch Project.  I’m getting excited to go to LeClaire again soon.

I had my post op check up yesterday afternoon and everything looked great.  I tested 20/20 vision so I’m thrilled after all those years wearing glasses not to have to wear them anymore.  My surgeon asked which procedure I liked the best normal surgery or laser surgery (since I had each eye done differently.)  No question the laser surgery was tops in my view.  🙂

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your day.  Stay warm and be careful.

Tuesday ~ February 09, 2016

Posted by Dave Updegraff on February 9, 2016
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

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Happy Tuesday!

I didn’t get any photography in this weekend.  Never really seemed that busy but just didn’t get around to it.  The weather wasn’t all that great and on the one day we had sunshine I was a little under the weather.  So I’ll show you some behind the scenes, as it were, of the shooting at Lock & Dam # 14.

I believe these guys are Common Mergansers.  I may be wrong so feel free to correct me if I am.  When the action is slow you either photograph things in front of you or you visit with those around you.  I did a lot of both.  I have a lot of shots of these guys, some geese, and some ducks.  The ducks were really too far away to photograph.  I will also practice panning on the ubiquitous gulls flying by.

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I got this guy on the way down but couldn’t keep up with him when he snatched the fish.

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The result is he has a nice lunch and a bunch of photographers had some nice images on their memory cards.

That’s it for today.   Remember you can click on the image to enlarge if.

Thank you for all the wonderful Birthday greetings and sentiments yesterday.  Really makes me feel good.  Thank you.

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

Sunday ~ March 15, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on March 15, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

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Happy Sunday!

Yesterday afternoon Jeanne and I drove over to East Dubuque to purchase some wine.  On the way across the Julian Dubuque Bridge we noticed a half-dozen eagles flying looking for food.  Of course that got me excited and I was ready to turn around and go get my camera.  She was surprised that I had actually gotten in the car without one.

After we finished some other errands Jeanne had to help with a project at the church and so I got my camera and long lens and went back to the river.  I checked all my normal places and not one eagle, sea-gull, or pelican could I find. 😦

I decided to go up to Mud Lake and see if I could find the owl that my friend Andreas has observed.  No luck there either so I was about ready to head back home when I decided to take a drive around the back of the marina and that’s where I found this guy.  I thought he was trying to catch a fish.  This image is not tack sharp because I just had enough time to grab the camera and turn it on for this shot.

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At first I thought he would fly away with a fish in his talons but he stayed there and struck this pose for me.  I was not prepared for his next actions.  For the next 20 minutes he took a bath in the water.  I have watched small birds frolic in the bird bath at home and have posted some of those photographs.

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But I have never seen an eagle frolic.  I shot 482 images of him taking a bath.  Most of them are the same, with lots of water droplets flying all around him.  I’ll post some more of his antics tomorrow.  It was great fun to watch and just reminded me that many times when you least expect it there is an experience about to happen and I was fortunate enough to capture it.

Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day.  Be careful.

Sunday ~ January 25, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on January 25, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

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Happy Sunday!

Eagle Week – Day 6

These are the last of the eagle images.  At least until I can find some more eagles.  🙂

All three of these images were taken toward the end of the session.  You can tell by the beautiful light on the birds.  This Juvenal had made several passes over the fishing area but had apparently never found anything.  I really love how the fading sunlight makes his eyes sparkle.

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This is an image I didn’t think I had captured.  I’m like a kid in a candy store when it comes to shooting eagles.  If it’s black, white, brown or in the air I’m pressing the shutter.   The D4 has such a huge buffer you can rip off 80 images of a lot of nothing, so you can’t always tell on the little 3 inch LCD what you have.

I heard Andreas telling Jeanne that he had captured an eagle eating a fish.  I had followed a couple of eagles but hadn’t seen that.  Sometimes you have to wait until you get home in front of your computer to see what you actually did get.

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I gave a whoop and Jeanne asked what that was for and I told I did get an image of the eagle eating the fish.  🙂

When eagles catch a small fish they will eat it in mid-air.  It satisfies their hunger immediately but more important they don’t have to protect their food from the other eagles.  After an eagle puts his talons in the water he will look down at his talons on the assent.  He wants to know if he caught anything (eagles have very little feeling in their talons) and if the fish is small enough he will eat it in mid-air and not worry about the other eagles. 🙂

You can click on the images to make them larger.  The last image makes me want to clear my throat.  🙂

It’s been fun showing you all the eagle shots.  I hope you enjoyed them as well.

Thanks for checking out the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Saturday ~ January 24, 2015

Posted by Dave Updegraff on January 24, 2015
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , , .

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Happy Saturday!

Eagle Week – Day 5

I intended to post this on Friday but unfortunately I caught a bug of some kind and was in bed most of the day on Friday.  Didn’t feel good Thursday evening and went to bed very early.  Glad to report that I’m feeling much better today.

One of the things that I always try for when capturing images of eagles is the actual catch.  I think it is what most photographers try to capture.  This is not my best effort but it still gives you the idea of what the eagle goes through to get a meal.

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So this was going to be the last of my eagle report but I have one more set of images from the shoot that I want to share with you.  I’ll post those tomorrow.

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This particular image was the last one I shot on Sunday.  As you can tell from the warm color of the sun it was the last of the light for the day. 🙂

If I keep feeling better today I will hopefully get out this afternoon and find some more images for you to view.

Thanks as always for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day.  Stay well and be careful.

Friday ~ December 05, 2014

Posted by Dave Updegraff on December 5, 2014
Posted in: Daily Posts. Tagged: , , , .

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Happy Friday!

I was taking my normal route to work yesterday morning and in the distance I saw what I thought to be some black birds feasting on some fresh roadkill.  As I came over the hill there were three eagles on the highway (not black birds.)

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I slammed on the brakes and turned into the other lane or I would have surely hit one of them.  There was a farm driveway a few feet down the road and I pulled in there to grab a camera.  I’m very fortunate to get these shots as the camera was not configured properly for the long lens.

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I put the Tamron 150 – 600 mm lens on the Nikon D4, which had the ISO set at 100 in aperture priority and fired away.  The fastest shutter speed I got was 1/320 sec at f9.  There was no time to make changes.  The eagles quickly flew around the area and departed.

I’ve heard of hunters getting “buck fever” when hunting deer and a prize deer comes within range.   I think that is what happened to me.  I was a little charged with adrenaline from the near miss with the eagles and then rushing trying to capture some images of them I was literally shaking.  🙂

Another doctor appointment today.  Seems like I’m spending a lot of time sitting in waiting rooms to see various doctors.  Plan B sucks so no complaints.

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