The Cottage life series has previously visited the subject of bald eagles, and of using long telephoto lenses to photograph them. Can’t have too much of that stuff.
What’s going on is, the three eagles who hang out round the cottage are raising a fourth, and one of the folks along the shoreline found the nest and emailed directions. So we went and looked. I took a picture but it’s just a messy tangle of sticks in a high evergreen fork with what might be some brown tail feathers. We watched for a half-hour, and a big eagle visited a couple of times with something recently-killed. No stopping for parental affection, just dropping off the still-warm protein.
This is not something you see every day.
And, finally, I actually managed to focus the big Tokina (well, not absolutely, but verging on well-enough) on an eagle, a couple of times; here you go.
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Damn, it’s hard to get close enough, even with a 400mm lens. Those trees are big. What really frosts my socks is that I had him in my sights when he took off, but totally failed to capture the drama using this large heavy antique manual-focus lens. So there are more chapters to this story. I could lash out and buy a big modern lens with autofocus and all that, but I think the failing is in the photographer not the glass. Which can be addressed with practice and patience.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Survey Tool.J-ann (Apr 29 2011, at 03:45)
more patience and dedication. i'll be waiting for the continuation of this story. nice shots though
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From: Bryan Murphy (Apr 29 2011, at 08:56)
I usually skip over your photography posts, but damn that second picture is a fantastic shot.
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From: Scott Johnson (Apr 29 2011, at 18:54)
Those are some beautiful shots of that eagle. I remember when you posted the first attempts, and I'm happy to see that you have finally captured that glorious bird.
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