Change of Luck

So far this winter’s eagle season for me has been a complete bust.  I have been seeing small numbers of eagles, but nothing within range to photograph.  Due to the warm winter most of the water in the lakes and reservoirs is not frozen.  Which gives the eagle’s free roam of the area, and they mostly stay in areas where people cannot go.  But yesterday and today Mother Nature is throwing a curve ball, and dropping temperatures to zero and below, with wind chills in the -20 to -30's.  I am sure that the ice will form on the lakes, and tomorrow I hope that I will get a chance to spend most of the day out.  Maybe these extremely cold temperatures will be the change of luck that I need to get my first eagle photographs of this year.

Since it has been so bad with the eagle count, I decided that I would fill my bird feeders and see what I could get.  I have had a good amount of species visiting including cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, juncos, tufted titmouse, and nuthatches, but I have not seen the woodpeckers that I have seen in the past.

I also have had a hawk that seems to show up every time I fill my feeders.  I guess he likes easy prey.  I feel bad about the situation, but I don’t think I can do much about it.  If you watch him carefully he normally hides in the trees above my feeder and ambushes the other animals.  Last year he attacked a squirrel on the ground below my feeder and chased him up a tree.  It was crazy too watch.  I had never seen a hawk hop branch to branch up a tree and chase a squirrel.  In the end he managed to kill the squirrel just behind my fence.  Since then I have felt bad about filling the feeders but I guess it is only nature taking its course.  If anyone has ideas about stopping the hawk, please feel free to comment.  The only thing I could find was to not fill the feeders for a while and hope the hawk moves on.

I know that I have not been posting much, but I have not had many photographs to post.  So I think I will be trying to post more helpful hints and other things to fill the time in between my photographs.  If anyone has a topic that they would like me to try and cover, please leave a comment and I will try and cover it.  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.