Bald Eagle

Haliaeetus leucocephalus

On December 25th Ron D. and I saw an eagle early in the morning perched on this old pole by a boat ramp and took pictures through the fog then the bird flew away. Later in the morning we were driving towards the pole and saw an eagle there again, so we stopped. Before long the eagle took off and flew west and dropped into the water of the canal about 1/4 of a mile away.

About that time a kestrel came and perched where the Eagle had been. Approximately four to five minutes later the Eagle may have spotted the kestrel and started flying back our way very quickly, chased the kestrel off and then landed back on the perch. The clouds and fog opened up around that time.

When my lens is resting on the pick up window I use my left hand on the foot to support it and so the gear doesn't fall out the window, I use my right hand for the camera body and shutter button. The trouble I have then is zooming in and out, I almost need a third hand! Any way, I didn't get to zoom back at all when this eagle came in to chase off the kestrel and instead got this very intimate image of the eagle just as it landed.

This is probably an image the viewer will either love or hate. I know I love it even though it is a departure from my usual style.

D200, lens resting on pickup window, f6.3, 1/1250, ISO 200, 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, Natural light, not baited. This is 94% of the original image, cropped to 5 x 7 format. I'm not quite sure about the composition but a vertical did not appeal to me because cropping tighter would cause me to lose the bird's tail.

I picked this image to be my first of 2010 because of the spread wings of the Eagle, symbolically my move to Utah has caused me to spread my "wings" too and I am looking forward to the challenges the Utah birds present to me in photography and learning all I can about them.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your comments & critiques, thank you for looking.