Winter Eagle Trips

Photograph taken with canon 55 - 250 mm lens

During the wintertime, I did not get out as much as I would have liked.  However, I did take several trips to my favorite bald eagle areas.  In the beginning of February, I took off some days from work for my birthday, which gave me some opportunities to get out and take some photographs.  During my trips in February, the eagle counts were amazing.  I was seeing at least over twenty a day.  Several days there were at least ten or more eagles in view of my camera.   It was remarkable to see.  I had not seen numbers like that in at least two years.

Photograph taken with bower 650 - 1300 mm lens

  

Even with the high numbers, I did not manage many good photos.  At that point, in the winter I was still only using my Bower 650-1300 mm manual focus lens. So, photographing birds in flight was difficult, unless they were close enough where I could use my shorter lenses.  I did manage a shot through a hole in thick brush, of a pair of full mature eagles together on a branch.  The immature eagle photograph atop the post was an old photograph that I found on my memory card when I started the camera up for the first time in a year.

Photograph taken with sigma 150 - 600 mm contemporary lens

Towards the end of March, I purchased my new Sigma 150-600 contemporary lens. I had a few days off from work, and I took a couple of more trips out for eagles. The numbers were drastically lower than the prior month.  I was lucky if I was seeing more than five eagles in a trip.  The one day, I spent almost eight hours out and did not see anything within range.  I did take one photograph of an eagle sitting in a tree with the new lens, but that was about it.  (The photo is above)

Photograph taken with sigma 150 - 600 mm contemporary lens

I did not really get to test the auto focus lens on eagles this year. During the down times when I was not seeing eagles I did try to take some photographs of the smaller birds that were coming to feed at the feeders that are set up.  I did manage some shots of black cap chickadees and nuthatches.  I have included two of those photographs.  I am really looking forward to next winter's eagle season.  Hopefully, I will be able to pull off more action shots, now that I have a long range auto focus lens.

Photograph taken with sigma 150 - 600 mm contemporary lens  

Since my winter outings, I have taken several trips out to the Bashakill Wildlife Management Area, hoping to photograph waterfowl that are migrating through our region this time of year.  It has allowed me to get somewhat used to the new lens, and how it functions.  In the next posts, I will cover those trips, and then I will be caught up thus far.  Until next time.