So at least I have something to do while I am stuck here waiting for surgery.  My wife and I can literally sit here all day and watch these incredible birds in the yard. They have been incredibly active the last few days. Some interesting facts. The Females are larger than the males, at 4-5 years old they choose a mate for life and will not separate unless the other eagle dies, wingspan at full maturity is ~ 7ft, they cruise at ~40mph, can dive at ~100mph+ and usually live ~20-30 years in the wild... This guy had just caught a meal and was sharing it with his partner. We believe there are two nesting pairs with kids and 6 eagles total now.

Some pics...

This last is my favorite.  I have hundreds of pics just grabbed a few this am.

 

I never had the opportunity to photograph a bald eagle in the wild.  I wish I had.  They are majestic birds.

I do have a couple of pictures of a bald eagle I photographed in a bird sanctuary in a zoo.

Noel

Curious about camera / lenses. Great pics. We have some in southern Illinois, and it is always a thrill to see one of these majestic creatures.

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

I never had the opportunity to photograph a bald eagle in the wild.  I wish I had.  They are majestic birds.

I do have a couple of pictures of a bald eagle I photographed in a bird sanctuary in a zoo.

Noel

You know I already consider myself fortunate so this is just another thing to be very grateful for... Hope you are well!  

1 hour ago, Tim_Capps said:

Curious about camera / lenses. Great pics. We have some in southern Illinois, and it is always a thrill to see one of these majestic creatures.

Thanks so much Tim, better to be lucky than good 🙂  I'm using a T3i so like everything else I own the equipment is far more capable than the user!  It's a Tamron 18-400 lens so nothing spectacular but my goodness lenses are expensive!!!  Manual Focus but Auto settings I find things tend to get worse when I start adjusting iso/af etc LOL...  Again, all I can do is screw things up at best LOL.   

We actually have stairs going right down to the river it's just 17F outside so I'm taking pics from my office window.  If I could get down to water level right now I'd probably get some incredible shots but not in this weather LOL!  

39 minutes ago, psolk said:

It's a Tamron 18-400 lens so nothing spectacular but my goodness lenses are expensive!!!

I always told people who were looking for advice on buying a camera to skimp on the camera but splurge on the lens.  The lens is everything.  I had a Sony A700 camera and a Sony 200-400 lens.  Used the zoom for magnification and for framing.

But the camera only takes the picture.  On the computer you MAKE the picture.  Especially framing.

Noel

Nice shots there. I think birds are my favorite subjects to photograph.

I agree with @birdguy. The lens is everything. A lens with VR makes a huge difference too. I use a  Nikkor 200-500 5.6 ED that I got directly from Nikon; refurbished and on sale. It was still a gob of money, but worth it. If you use a cropped sensor camera, like a D500, you get an effective 750mm lens.

I have a decent camera,but between a long lens and flight simulation... ah the choices! My wife and I were out filming (southern Illinois is a beautiful place) and decided to run a couple of levees through the bottoms. And there, pretty close, and on a a tree as bare of branches as a telephone pole was a beautiful bald eagle. It was the golden hour, and his feet looked so orange. Where was my fancy camera and lenses? Why, packed away in the trunk of course! I had to take the shot with my iPhone! Well, better than nothing I suppose. I got my wife a camera for Christmas and she was so excited to find a big hawk in a tree in our yard. She was able to get close and took lots of pictures of this hawk nestled among the branches. And that, my friends, is how my wife learned why you don't use autofocus 🙂 The twigs came out sharp, though!

P.S. That top photo is truly outstanding.

On 1/26/2022 at 2:10 PM, birdguy said:

I never had the opportunity to photograph a bald eagle in the wild.  I wish I had.  They are majestic birds.

I do have a couple of pictures of a bald eagle I photographed in a bird sanctuary in a zoo.

Noel

They fly around the Missouri capitol building all the time (in jefferson city), we used to watch them with binoculars.

Down in my part of the state we do have them, Tim knows these areas I'm talking about.  Out around Grand Tower and Fountain Bluff/Gorham and across to Trail of Tears State Park, there are bald eagles out that way most of the time.   There might be some up around Crab Orchard Lake but I have never been there -- but supposedly they nest there at times.

Those talons in the second photo!   I grew up in a house on a bluff,  on the Chesapeake Bay.    We had a nearby light house,  year after year it always had a nesting pair.   Beautiful animals.    We could see them extremely well,   feeding fish to their young.  I love seeing birds in general,  but the various birds of prey are spectacular.    I've got some red tailed hawks,   a few owls,  and some turkey vultures around me.    I had a neighbor across the street that kept half a dozen peacocks,  which was very cool.    He was a farmer,  and would plant an acre of sun flowers ever year just for his wife.  Then his roosters would wake us up every morning,  such a cool sight. 

On 1/27/2022 at 7:29 PM, Mace said:

There might be some up around Crab Orchard Lake but I have never been there

They have been sighted, but not consistently, at least by me. Never saw any around Grand Tower per se, but if you head south and get off the hard road and run the levees toward La Rue Pine Hills, you'll see them in the bottoms, and up-close and personal. Mace might know exactly where I'm talking about. Then head up to watch the sunset from atop the towering limestone bluffs. Oh. And Pine Hills is also known for the Annual Snake Migration, for those of you not into birds. They close off the road, apparently to allow amorous venomous serpents to safely cross. Not unusual to find a rattlesnake or copperhead in those parts. Or someone cooking meth.