....Look at the size difference between this im. bald eagle and what's left of the duck. What a beast!! There is so much more to bald eagles in terms of behavior than some people realize...not very pretty sometimes either. No matter how many times I photograph bald eagles, I still get excited.
Acts of predation are sometimes hard to watch but the photographer in me gets kind of excited. This series gets uglier and uglier.
1/1000@5.6+1stop..Canon 40D, 1-400mm IS, out of the car window. I kind of wish I used a bit of flash to illuminate the duck head. Lightening in PS and it starts looking a bit unnatural.
Good shot. Gad, the edge of it's beak is all bloody… Well, let's rejoice that it is a successful hunter and thank its parents for their good teaching. Poor duck, RIP…
I used to be a hard core duck hunter before I got into photography. On many occasions I have seen bald eagles divebomb down into a raft of floating ducks with unbelievable force and precision. One time, a mature eagle dove down and wiped out a beautiful drake pintail that was just outside of my decoy spread - killing it easily.Then it scooped it up and flew right at me, landing on a dike a few yards away. From our blind, my brother and I watched it have breakfast totally in awe. Like you said, its not pretty, but still an amazing sight to witness. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by Ned Fenimore on March 20, 2009 at 11:14 AM
Amazing shot of a predator!
Posted by Nate Chappell on March 24, 2009 at 11:02 AM
Nice job capturing this Dan, good lighting on the eagle, if you haven't already cropped it, I might crop out the bottom posts, that would also focus more attention on the eagle and the duck. I see these guys hunting ducks on a regular basis but haven't been able to get a good shot of the results yet. This is really nice.
Discussion
4 replies....Look at the size difference between this im. bald eagle and what's left of the duck. What a beast!! There is so much more to bald eagles in terms of behavior than some people realize...not very pretty sometimes either. No matter how many times I photograph bald eagles, I still get excited.
Acts of predation are sometimes hard to watch but the photographer in me gets kind of excited. This series gets uglier and uglier.
1/1000@5.6+1stop..Canon 40D, 1-400mm IS, out of the car window. I kind of wish I used a bit of flash to illuminate the duck head. Lightening in PS and it starts looking a bit unnatural.
Tulelake NWR, OR/CA border