Not a single click during the last four days!! :-( Several other projects and in addition really bad weather stood in the way. Well, who says the photos have to be from today…?? It's always good to have an archive if time is not available... ;-) These two shots of Bald Eagles were made March 16, 2014. Enjoy your week!
I was about to enter my car down at the Mississippi River yesterday morning when I saw a Bald Eagle flying up from the water with something flapping in its talons. My first thought was it had caught a fish. The bird landed in a tree nearby and I realized that the eagle had preyed a small bird, which I later identified as an American Coot. They are here in abundance and obviously part of the eagles diet. What followed was a bloody mess for the bird and the eagle didn’t look too pretty either around its bill. I have seen many Bald Eagles catching and eating fish but never feeding on waterfowl until yesterday.
My tripod was already stored in the car and so I tried to handle the long and heavy lens by hand. Branches obstructed the view and the sun was straight behind the eagle, means I had to move slowly to a different spot. The eagle gave me less than three minutes to figure out a way to overcome a tricky light situation and find the gap between the gazillions of bare branches. It wasn’t until a fisherman’s boat drove by behind me that the eagle took off with the remains of the coot in its talons. What an exciting moment to start a day with…
The winter struck back again with an inch of snow and temperatures below freezing but it was sunny today. The warmer weather the days before cleared the smaller rivers from ice and even the Mississippi got some open water now. It was a perfect day for Bald Eagle photography.
Lots of action at the 16th Street basin in Dubuque. I actually thought to have just a brief look at this location but I ended up spending more than three and a half hours there… :-)
I can tell you there wasn’t a dull moment during the whole time. The eagles were moving around, caught fish, missed the catch sometimes, and were fighting about the prey. I may show a few more photos during the week.
If you look at my photo from yesterday you can see what a difference a blue sky makes for bird photography, especially with snow and ice around.
Joan and I had a blast today. We went to almost every possible location along the Mississippi where there is a chance to see birds and other wildlife. Starting in Dubuque, Iowa we went to Bellevue, Green Island, Sabula, and back to Green Island. Joan climbs the steep learning curve of handling and using a new camera system at the moment. My wife always had a good eye for photography and she is a darn good travel photographer. However, she wasn’t always happy with the performance of her old Fuji camera and lens. She finally joined the “Family Nikon Club” and is now the proud owner of a brand new Nikon D5300 with a Nikon 18-140 mm lens. One of the advantages of choosing Nikon is that Joan can also use some of my lenses, although the 18-140 is a nice lens for travel photography. Today we put the Sigma 150/f2.8 plus Teleconverter 1.4 on the DX body of the Nikon D5300. This gave her the equivalent to 315 mm / f4 on a full frame camera , a range that allows already some decent wildlife photography.
What did we see today? Lots of Bald Eagles, some Great Blue Herons, American White Pelicans, hundreds of Canada Geese, Mallards, and Ring-billed Gulls. And there was a “first one” for me. We followed a lark in the Green Island Wetlands and for some reason I thought it was an Eastern Meadowlark. It wasn’t before I sorted through my images at home that I realized that it was instead a Horned Lark.
The photo of these two Bald Eagles was made right here in Dubuque. More of them were sitting in the trees and on the ice looking out for fish.
Following a hint from my photography friend Dave Updegraff I went to Dubuque, Iowa this evening. There is a pond near the Mississippi, called “16th Street Detention Basin”. At my arrival about 15 Bald Eagles were sitting on the ice or flying in circles. I watched them for several minutes but suddenly they all took off and flew towards the river. I guess it was dinner time… Except for one juvenile, that kept circling above for a couple more minutes. I wrote this before, I do not like this place because it is so damn noisy due to the traffic in this area, where several streets intersect. However, this pond provides a resting and feeding place for many birds that come through the Mississippi valley. The other news is that the American White Pelicans have returned. I saw a squadron of 25 birds soaring up the river. If this is not a sure sign for spring than I don’t know what is… ;-) It was warm again today but the river had still its ice cover. This may change any minute.
The Great Horned Owl was still sitting in the nest at Mud Lake Park. No sign of a young owlet yet. I’ll keep you posted how this may develop…
I took off early from home yesterday morning. The air was cold but it was sunny and clear. I had hope to find some Bald Eagles on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River. The river is frozen and only a small stretch of maybe 50- 100 yards below the dam had open water. Unfortunately there were only a couple eagles in a tree, too far away for a photo. They must have had a good breakfast already because they didn’t move at all during the whole time I was there. With other words, I got skunked by the eagles!
I have the habit to take more than just one lens on every trip, even if the goal is wildlife photography with a long lens. You never know what may come your way and it allows to change plans and look for different subjects and opportunities. The clear air, the nice light, the snow and ice, the mist from the water coming down the dam, this all invited me to make an architectural image of the dam. I have made photos from this vantage point before but these were by far the best conditions ever. The Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm/f2 is my favorite lens for this kind of photography. It has manual focus but I love its color rendition and the incredible sharpness. I’m glad I had the 35/f2 in the bag yesterday… ;-) By the way, both photos just add to what I wrote about snow and colors in my last blog post. Wishing all of you a wonderful week!
Today was a perfect day for going out to the Mississippi River and photograph Bald Eagles, though it was very windy and therefor bitterly cold. It was the first time this winter season that I was back at lock and dam #14, down south in LeClaire, Iowa. It is the location with the best access to the river and the open water below a dam and many other camera owners can be found there on a day like this. I took off late because I like the late afternoon light and the hour before sunset the best at this location. The eagles were very active today and we had plenty of opportunities to practice proper hand holding and panning technique with the long lens. I have used the Sigma 50-500 on a tripod quite often during the last month around our house but shooting with this lens handhold is a total different ball game. It took a little time to get back into full swing.
There are lots of Bald Eagle pictures on my hard drive already, so the question is, what can still be accomplished? I’m now looking for particular gestures of the birds in quality light and I also want to make images that don’t need to be zoomed in because the birds are too far away. With other words, there is plenty of room for improvements.
The first photo is as it came out of the camera, no crop and exposed for the highlights (head and neck), which makes also the blue sky a little darker. I like that. What makes this photo special for me is the gesture how the Bald Eagle turns its head to the side.
The second image is all about movement and great light. It is the moment when the eagle stopped soaring and made the turn to go straight down to the water for a fish. It is a photo I wanted to make since a long time. The picture isn’t zoomed in. I just decided for a 1:1 aspect ratio and cut some sky off on both sides. I think this supports the eagle’s gesture better than the original 3:2 aspect ratio and still leaves the band of clouds intact as an anchor point.
The last photo doesn’t need much explanation. A shaft of late afternoon light hits the eagle perfectly and having the Illinois side of the Mississippi River in the frame makes for a nice environmental shot. What always amazes me is how the long lens compresses a distance. The trees on the other side of the river are half a mile away (~800 m)....
I can’t let my annual review go by without showing you a photo of a Bald Eagle. These magnificent raptors are here in Iowa all year long, but during the winter, when the Mississippi is frozen, they come down from Minnesota and Canada in big numbers.
I didn’t even have to browse through my archive and look for photos that were made earlier this year during the last winter. These two images are from today. The weather conditions, and more important the light, were just right for going after the eagles today. I counted about twenty birds at the lock and dam #11 in Dubuque. Twenty five miles south in Bellevue, at lock #12, I found the same situation. I enjoyed watching the Bald Eagles and of course, I wasn’t the only one who tried to make a photo of these wonderful birds.
This eagle is about to become an adult. It takes four years before they loose the white mottling on their feathers and develop the pure white neck and tail.
Part two of the "River Stories" took place last Monday evening. I still had the kayak on the roof top of the car and decided for another trip on the Mississippi River. Shortly after leaving the boat ramp in the marina at Mud Lake Park (the closest access to the big river for us and only 10 minutes away from our home) I saw a juvenile Bald Eagle sitting on the trunk of a big disrooted tree that was stranded in a shallow part of the Mississippi. I expected the bird would fly away as soon as I came closer but things developed in a totally different way. A couple crows also claimed the big tree for themselves and the eagle just hopped around, flapped its wings, and tried to scare the crows away. This wasn't very successful and after a few minutes the young Bald Eagle gave up and sat down on one of the roots that were sticking out into the air. I approached the bird very slowly and carefully and it just tolerated my presence. I had Cooper with me in the boat but the little dog stayed quiet and didn't move. He hardly ever spoils my wildlife encounters and I can't ask for a better dog in that regard. Because the shallow water the weeds kept the kayak from just drifting away and I got my chance to frame the eagle and make the photos I was hoping for.
And here is the second benefit you can have while shooting from a boat (I talked about the first one in yesterday's blog post). It allows me to get physically closer to a subject on a lake or river. The shore doesn't limit an approach necessarily anymore. Of course, it doesn't always work out and I consider myself very lucky to make these images. However, it increases the chances to make a click you could never make from shore and to get closer to the animal you like to have in the viewfinder of your camera. There is more from this trip on the hard drive, so please stay tuned for another "river story"...
This is the image I had actually in mind for yesterday's post but then the encounter of the little foxes made the news first. This Bald Eagle has its nest near Mud Lake at the Mississippi River. I have seen the bird several times already and got an idea where the new nest is located up in the hills. As you might remember, the eagle nest at Mud Lake is taken by a Great Horned Owl now and my guess is that the eagles just chose another location for their nest.
