Deep Freeze

Two weekends ago temperatures dropped below zero for a couple days, which did cause the reservoirs to almost completely freeze over.  This for me was a good thing, because it forced the eagles to be near the stream where I can get the closest to them.  The eagle numbers were the highest I’ve seen this winter, but still lower than normal.  I was seeing about ten eagles every time I went out. 

However I only managed a few photographs.  I was having problems with lighting.  With the lens I use it has a very high f-stop when at long range, which was causing problems with getting the proper lighting.  Also due to this, most of the time I had to use a 1600 ISO. Which I would prefer not to use because of the extra noise that it adds to photographs.  Also I was battling the sun all day.  It was either too bright or not enough.  It always seemed to sneak behind a cloud at the worst moments.  In addition I was having problems with the full mature eagles because there heads were overexposing, and I could not figure out how to prevent it, without the rest of the image being drastically underexposed.

Furthermore I had a day that when I arrived at the lake, there was a construction crew working on clearing brush and putting in new electric poles.  They were working right where the eagles roost and feed.  This really upset me, especially since they were running a chainsaw and making tons of noise.  There are signs that it is an endangered species area during the winter months because of the eagle population in the area during those months.  Also there are signs stating that outdoor activity will disturb eagles.  Yet they were out there working.  It just seemed like poorly timed construction work.  Due to there noise the eagles left the area for the day.  But the next morning they were back and it was the best day I had all week.   

During my trips last week I was also seeing much higher numbers of ducks.  I saw plenty of common mergansers, black ducks, and a few hooded mergansers.  But I also found two common goldeneye ducks, which I don’t normally see.  I also spotted a downy woodpecker, but he didn’t stay around for long.   

Towards the end of last week, the weather had started another warming trend.  It is quite crazy.  Temperatures fell to below zero and days later it climbed into the fifties, with average temperatures around freezing.  I am hoping that I continue to see more eagles, but I believe that the warm weather won’t help.  I guess at least I can look forward to the spring duck migration.  Until next time.           

Low Bald Eagle Count Last Few Days

I traveled out to the reservoir the last two days and both days I only spotted two eagles each day.  This is way less then the previous weeks count.  The water level has gone done a lot and maybe that is part of the reason for the low numbers.  I also went looking along the Delaware River and the Lackawaxen River and didn't see any eagles.  The ice build up along the rivers is crazy this year.  I can’t remember the last time the rivers were so covered in ice. 

I did get to look over my pictures from Friday and almost all of them were overexposed.  I did however do some post processing on a few of the photographs to at least show what I got to see.  At one point there were two eagles together next to each other and one of them was dipping his head in the water I guess trying to fish along the ice.  Another eagle landed about 10-20 feet above me, but the sun was behind him so he was back-lit.  However to me it was a neat angle and the photo still had enough light so the eagle was not just a silhouette.  

Last week was a very good week and hopefully the bald eagle count will go back up as this week continues, so I can see more of these magnificent birds.  Enjoy the photographs.  Until next time. 

Bitter Cold, Great Day for Bald Eagles

Yesterday was a slow day out at the reservoir.  There were some bald eagles, but they were staying put, and were to far away for a shot.  Today however was much better.  At one point there were eight eagles in one tree together.  They were also much more active and landing on the ice.  However the super bright light was an issue.  A few clouds would have been good today.  The sunlight was causing problems not only overexposing the eagles, but the ice in the background.  The lighting was just so harsh not many of the photographs were coming out.  Not sure if I could have done anything better but there is always next time.  

The bitter cold was the worst part of today.  The wind chill was in the negative thirties and my fingers were freezing.  I do were gloves but they have open fingers to allow me to grip the camera and to focus the lens.  This weekend looks bad for photography.  There is a winter storm and ice coming so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to photograph anything.  

It will give me the chance to look at the images I took today though and post them.  Hopefully some of them will come out and not be overexposed.  The photographs on this post are more from a couple days ago and are more or less a sequence as the eagle came in for a landing.  I hope everyone enjoys them.  Feel free to comment.  Until next time.     

Cold Morning Well Worth It

I arrived at the reservoir at sunrise today and the eagles were there again.  When I first got there it was still a little to dark to be photographing eagle’s but they were putting on a show.  No one else was there to see it either.  It was beautiful, the fog was rolling off the water, the sun was peering over the tree line, and both ducks and eagles were present.  It was hard at first to photograph them due to the fog, but it started to clear off once the sun was up.  What made it really challenging was the cold.  The thermometer was reading negative eleven at the reservoir.  However the cold did not seem to be affecting the eagles.  

I was not counting how many eagles were there but it was close to a dozen or so, plus plenty of mergansers and black ducks.  I am Looking forward to going back tomorrow for another chance to see it all again.  The one photograph is from yesterday of the eagle rubbing his beak on the branch.  The other one is one of the flying shots from today.  Hopefully ill get a chance to look them all over and post more soon.  Enjoy the photographs, and feel free to comment.  Until Next time.   

Bald Eagles!

Yesterday while I was out running an errand I passed by the reservoir and there were ten bald eagles on the ice.  So I went back to the reservoir in the afternoon and only saw two eagles.  None were close enough to photograph.  So this morning I went back and there were eagles everywhere.  They were finally here and they were cooperating.  They were on the ice, flying around, and close enough to photograph.  Some were even close enough to photograph with my 250 mm lens.  I’m hoping they stick around because the weather for the next few days is supposed to be good.  This year has been a slow year for eagles in the area, at least for me and I was so happy they were finally here.  There was one eagle today that was acting funny.  He was rubbing his beak up and down a branch.  Not sure why but it was interesting to watch.  Hopefully tomorrow will be another good day.  Until next time.

Eagle Photographs from Break

So far this bald eagle season has been a bit of a let down.  The weather has been crazy.  There is tons of snow and ice, and it has kept me busy.  I did get a chance to get out today, but only saw one bald eagle. But I do have some images from last break that I never got the chance to upload.  Last break I had a great outing where there were eagles on the same side of the road as me, and I only needed my 255 mm lens to photograph them.  Also they were feeding on the ground so I got plenty of opportunities to photograph them.  I am hoping I get a few more chances this week to get some photographs.

Hope everyone enjoys the photographs. Until next time.

Cold Weather Woes

The cold weather has been helpful for keeping bald eagles confined to the places that have open water which helps make it easier to know where you have the best chance to see them.  But the crazy weather has also led to me not being able to get out much because of snow, ice, rain, and freezing temperatures.  But I hopefully will be able to get out a few more times before I go back to college next week. 

Because I have not really had many chances to photograph anything I was looking through some of my old photographs from last year and realized I did not upload some of the images.  So I decided to upload them now and hopefully soon I will have some new photographs.  One of the photographs is an immature bald eagle, and the other photograph is of a red squirrel.  I also noticed that I have been having a problem with lighting of my pictures from when they are on my computer and when I upload them.  Sometimes they appear lighter and other times there dark.  I am not sure why but I will try to fix this in further posts. Until next time.

Happy New Year

Last break was very disappointing.  I really didn’t see anything I could photograph.  But this winter break has been much better.  So far I have seen many bald eagles, and an assortment of ducks, including common mergansers, black ducks, and hooded mergansers.  It has been a very good start to break and I am hoping it continues.

It started slowly this break but since the temperatures have dropped and the amount of open water has diminished the bald eagle population is contained in a smaller section of the reservoirs that I frequent.  I have plans to update some of my pages because they are getting outdated.  I plan to change some of the reviews to more relevant cameras and some other updates. 

 

 

I uploaded a few of the bald eagle photographs that I have gotten recently and I am also uploading a photograph of a common merganser that I took.  I was a little upset with myself that I overexposed many of the bald eagle photographs but it wasn’t so bad.

 

 I also will now be uploading full resolution photographs on flickr because they now offer 1TB of space.  So I will upload the full shots to flickr.  Hope you enjoy the photographs.  Until next time.        

Back at College

I'm sorry that I was unable to update my blog for a while. I really wanted to but I have not been able to get my mac laptop on the school's network. So I finally decided to download some software on my other laptop so I could work on my photographs. These photographs were all from the last week I had at home before I went back to college.

I had a lot of fun on my break photographing Bald Eagles.  It is always my favorite time of year when the eagles are around.  I do have another break in a few weeks and I have heard that there are even more eagles there than when I was home.  So I am really looking forward to it.

I hope you enjoy the photographs and I will try and update again soon. 

Immature Bald Eagles

The last few days have been excellent for bald eagle sightings.  Today was not the best day but I did see a few eagles.  I have also been seeing plenty of sea gulls, black ducks, and common mergansers.  I also keep seeing a kingfisher in the same spot everyday, but so far he has not been close enough to photograph.  

I’m hoping tomorrow will be a better day.  I only have one week till I go back to college.  So hopefully I will be able to get a few good shots before I head back.  Then I have a break about 4 weeks later.  Which should be prime eagle season where I live. 

I will try and post a couple more photographs within the next few days.  I hope everyone enjoys the photographs.  Feel free to comment on the photographs or leave questions.

Lots of Bald Eagles Over the Past Couple Days

It has been a great week for Bald Eagle photographs.  I spend a couple hours every morning out at the lake and the Bald Eagles are everywhere.  I've seen over a dozen Eagles everyday.  Two days ago was a the best day I have had in a long time. The Eagles were feeding and continually hitting the water.  I got a few good shots of them fishing, which are the first flying shots I have gotten in a while.

It is especially challenging for me to get these shots because I'm using a Manual Focus Lens.  On most of the flying photographs I was using my lens at 600mm to make it easier to focus.  Also I didn't need much more focal length than that, because the Eagles were so close.

 I hope you enjoy the Eagle Photographs.  I will be posting more soon. 

Photo Slideshow

Just got a chance to upload a new video on YouTube that I put together.  Its called Bald Eagle Photo Slideshow.  It is a compilation of some of my eagle photographs from the past two years.  Every year I notice as I look through my bald eagle photographs they seem to get better.  So I hope this trend continues and my photographs should continue to get better.  Click the link to watch the video.  Please comment, rate, and subscribe.  Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GkCD9fPX7Y

Back to College

Eagle Landing

Now that I am back to college I won’t have many opportunities for wildlife photography but I will have chances for other types of photography.  It makes me depressed to know that I will not have a chance until March, to go home and photograph bald eagles.  To make matters worse it was just getting really good and I had to leave to go back to school.  

 

After browsing other people’s photography blogs I have really wanted to go out and find owls, but so far no luck.  I have never photographed owls before and from other pictures I have seen they make very interesting photographs, and many people do not see owls on a regular basis.  I am hoping I can find some owls up here at school, because I have heard that some classes do go out and attempt to see owls.  I guess knowing that I can keep my spirits up until I can go back home and photograph Eagles.     

Full mature bald eagle fishing on rocks along a stream.

Eagle Season is Finally Here

I think this may be my best Eagle Photograph to date.

Eagle Season finally seems to be here.  I am starting to see more eagles than I was in the past month.  So it appears that the eagles have finally gotten here.  It has been an odd year because of the mild temperatures, so the season is starting later than normal.  But I am happy that they are finally here.

He got a little to close and I cut off his other wing, but I was still happy with the shot.

Yesterday was an amazing day.  All the wildlife were very active, including the black ducks, seagulls, and bald eagles.  The day started out with about a dozen bald eagles sitting in the trees.  Then one eagle would dive bomb the water and all the other eagles would then follow, trying to steal his catch.  Then they would land back up in the trees and repeat the process.  So most of my photographs were of flying eagles.  The hard thing for me is I use a manual focus lens at 650mm for most of my flying shots.  So it is much harder to get good shots.  I also took some pictures of seagulls and ducks fishing but none of the shots were that impressive. 

I also noticed that yesterday there were a lot more bald eagles than there has been in the past few weeks.  Plus it was not a normal day because the eagles remained active for most of the day, including the middle hours, which does not normally happen.  So I guess I was lucky.  Another hard part about getting good photographs is dueling it out with other photographers that are there.  Because there are only a few places to park where you can get good shots.  I hope to go back out tomorrow and Saturday, so check back in a few days for the next post.  Don’t forget to leave comments, and I will try and get back to you as soon as possible.