I had to go out this late afternoon. The weather doesn’t get much better during the month of March. To summarize today’s trip to the Green Island Wetlands, and further down south to Sabula, Iowa, I just can say, it is absolutely amazing how nature has changed just within the last 6 days. Because of the snow melt the ice on all the small rivers was broken, in the wetlands was plenty of open water, and snow is found only on the slopes that face north at the the ancient river valley of the Mississippi. The ice cover on the big river was still intact for the most part, but when I came back to Dubuque this evening I saw open water there as well
Both photos I show you today were made at the main channel of the Mississippi River in Sabula, Iowa. They are pretty much straight out of camera, just the usual sharpening and a little work on the contrast settings. Although the composition in the first picture was what I wanted, with the eagle placed on the left, I finally decided to make the photo square and cropped it on the right hand side. It is more an artistic crop, because I felt that all the ice on the right didn’t contribute that much to the image. It is different on some other pictures I made, where the eagle looks straight to the right. But here the bird has a beautiful gesture by looking down for the fish just below the branch, or as it seems to look for its own mirrored image on the water surface. ;-) I think the closer crop does a better justice to this gesture.