California Condors and Golden Eagles

During a recent trip to Arizona and Utah, I was driving on Highway 89 in Mt. Carmel Junction when I noticed a large bird landing on a mound of dirt near the road. I immediately guessed that it was a Golden Eagle and, much to my family's dismay, I turned the car around to go back get a look. I was in luck. There were two eagles perched on two mounds.

Golden Eagles and a Buzzard

I enlisted my daughter's help to hustle to the trunk to get the camera and swap lenses and I grabbed a couple of shots right away to be sure that I at least got something. After the first few grab shots, I took my time, not approaching them, moving along the road to try to get more favorable light angles. I noticed that the eagles had most of their attention on two buzzards who were feeding on something I never identified.

Another passerby saw me shooting and pulled over to take photos. Several people got out. I commented that I'd never seen such large buzzards before. I got a few flight shots as one eagle departed, and then got back into the car to leave.

Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle in Flight

One of the people from the group tapped on the window before I drove away and said that the buzzards were tagged California Condors. Well how dense could I be? No wonder they were so large. I simply wasn't expecting to see any condors so far from the Grand Canyon or Navajo Bridge. I got back out, took a few shots of the condors, and hoped for one with both heads up. In the end, I got one condor keeper.

California Condors Number 37 and 9

What ugly birds! With only a few hundred of these birds left alive, I knew I was fortunate to actually get a shot of them in the wild. And it all happened because I was really interested in the eagles to begin with. I had never seen any Golden Eagles, so I was fortunate that these were checking out the condors' meal. So I wound up getting two new birds photographed, at least new to me. And I didn't even make my family wait all that long.

Conowingo Dam Visit

Some blog posts, coupled with my own experience from last year, lead me to believe that the best eagle viewing at the Conowingo Dam is in the last week of November. This is when the transient (migrating) population peaks, merging with the resident population. The Thanksgiving holiday is this week, and the weather forecast is variable, so I decided to make my last trip for the year during yesterday's clear weather. I got up early and got there in time to get one of the last few parking spots. It was packed with photographers.

There was a lot of eagle activity all morning, with dozens of them clearly sitting on rocks at the far side of the river. Many fishing and fighting events took place. Unfortunately most of it was out of range of my gear. There were some flyover events that I was able to capture though, and here they are.

The following shot shows an eagle who got a fish and then circled the photographers a few times, offering an extended opportunity to photograph it from several angles. One photographer remarked that the bird seemed to be showing off.

Bald Eagle with Fish

Here's another shot from the same sequence.

Showing Off

Sometimes it's hard to identify a bird until I get a photo and get home and view it on a big screen. This guy flew by and got hardly any attention. I knew it wasn't an eagle at the time, and (correctly) guessed that it was a hawk.

Lonely Hawk Gets No Respect from Eagle Photographers

There were quite a few eagle-stealing-fish fights, but unfortunately not many close by. I was able to capture one such event.

Left Eagle Has Fish. Right Eagle Wants It.

One of the most frustrating things about photographing eagle fishing events is that they rarely seem to approach the fish while flying toward me. Too often, it's just a lot of eagle ass in the picture. Then it's a matter of timing. Well, here's an event that was still kind of far away, but close enough to get something usable. It's my favorite shot of the day.

Snatch!

Then it flew right past me with its catch.

On the Way to a Tree for Lunch!

I've been photographing eagles for a couple of years now, so I've seen them in lots of settings: flying, perched, fishing, fighting, nesting. But this is a first for me... This eagle is carrying a fish in its beak.

Bald Eagle with a Fish in its Beak

And I'll finish with two more shots at the edge of my lens' range. Here's a shot of an eagle about to strike something floating in the water.

About to Strike

And here's a shot from a different sequence of the elusive glance at the catch.

OK, Now What Did I Get?

So I had a nice pair of visits to the dam this Fall. Now that the cold weather is setting in, the local (resident) eagles should start reclaiming and rebuilding their nests for the next broods. I'm looking forward to the next few months of visits to the local wildlife refuge, which should be mostly deserted of people in the frigid weather.

Conowingo Dam Season

It's that time of year again. The eagles and photographers congregate at Conowingo Dam in November. I jumped the gun and went on October 31 because I've seen reports on Facebook that the eagles are already showing up and the weather was just gorgeous that day.

I left early to get there before the crowd. No luck. There were at least 50 photographers there when I arrived, but at least the parking lot wasn't full. Mornings by the water there are frequently foggy and this one was no exception.

Fishermen and Birds in the Morning Mist

As I waited for the mist to clear, I took a few shots of the rocks on the far shore. I could just make out the eagles beyond all the gulls.

Bald Eagles on the Rocks

There were only a few eagles sitting in the trees by the parking lot. In fact, there wasn't much action this day.

Lazy Bald Eagle

There were a few flyover events, but nothing especially remarkable worth posting here. Shortly before I left, I was lucky enough to capture a sequence with this bird.

Bald Eagle with a Big Fish

And no trip to the dam is complete without a shot of the photographers.

Photographers at Conowingo Dam

And I'm looking forward to a return trip later this month if the weather cooperates on days that I have off from work.

I Assembled a PC from Parts

I've been working as a computer professional for more than 20 years, and until recently I had never assembled a PC. I've installed disk drives, RAM, and expansion cards. I even replaced a motherboard once, complete with a CPU swap. But I always bought my PCs fully-assembled. When it became clear that the PC that I'm using to write this no longer met my needs, I perused the Dell site, and quickly concluded that I was unhappy with my options. So I researched PC assembly. I discovered lots of proud builders' Youtube videos showing their creations. Blogs abound with pictures and descriptions. I decided I could do this.

I went to http://www.pcpartpicker.com and started playing with potential builds. The site makes it dirt simple to make sure that the parts are compatible. I settled on the motherboard and CPU, and then the rest just sort of fell into place:

• Asus Z97-A motherboard, capable of supporting up to 32GB of RAM, LGA1150 socket.
• Intel Core i7-4790K processor, 4 cores, 8 threads.
• 16 GB of DDR3 RAM, which I intend to expand to the full 32GB later.
• CoolerMaster 650 Watt power supply.
• Corsair full tower case. I wanted a lot of room in the case. This one has room for 10 full-size drives plus more room for SSDs. With 3 built-in fans, screens and easy-to-clean filters, it had everything I needed except for a speaker.

I had several hard disks lying around that I had been using for backup storage, so I installed all five of them. I'm not bothering with an on-board DVD drive. I'm using a portable USB DVD drive for the rare situations when I need it. And because I'm not overclocking I think I can get by with the stock fans; no water cooling needed.

It took a while to order all the parts (I promised my wife to spread the costs over several months). Then I took my time assembling everything. It took a few tries to get everything assembled and seated properly, but it was sweet when it started up for the first time.

I have access to free Windows 10, so I tried it and I think I'll stick with it. I was prepared to go with Hyper-V as the OS, or Linux, but this will do nicely. Now I have 20,000+ photos in my Lightroom catalog to move over...

Joint Base Andrews Open House

After years of cancellations and cutbacks, the Joint Base Andrews air show took place again today. As a military ID card holder, I was eligible to skip the park/bus ride and I drove onto the base and parked on the east side, away from the exhibits. There were buses to shuttle around to the west side, but I saw so many people hanging out by their cars on the east ramp that I just decided to stay and watch the show from there, sitting in my car between acts. I was able to watch the F-22 demonstration and the Thunderbird routine, among other acts.

F-22 Raptor

F-22 Raptor

Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds

I shot the F-22 without a polarizer; the Thunderbirds with a polarizer. It was such a bright day that I was getting F16 and narrower shooting at 1/1000. The polarizer helped to darken things a bit, but in some shots the sky was just too dark blue and I had to try to brighten it. The down side of staying on the east side was that the sun favored the opposite side of the field and the best shots were when the airplanes were banked and showing me the sunny side. The other down side of staying with the car was the lack of concessions, and there were no bathrooms. But there was one other big plus: I was off base within 5 minutes of the end of the show.

Loons

The Common Loon is my annual target when I take vacation in Maine, where I stay in a house near a pond. They call it a pond, but it's a lake where I grew up.

I went out most mornings as the sun was just starting to shine strongly. Usually there was mist over the water. I used a kayak to paddle around the pond to find them. Last year, I was able to observe as many as five adults clustered together, and there were two juveniles, one of which was quite small. I was hoping for similar numbers this year. I wasn't disappointed.

Almost immediately, I found five together.

Five Loons Gathering

I quickly discovered how hard it is to get all of them in focus. I had trouble sometimes even with just two of them together.

Loons

I should have paid more attention to the aperture. I was so concerned about sharpness (shooting with a telephoto lens from a kayak) that I used 1/1000. Next time I'll boost the ISO. Nevertheless, I used what I learned last year to get between the sun and the birds and I tried my best not to spook or chase them, with a lot of success. Sometimes they popped up from a dive near my kayak and lingered nearby.

Loon with Dripping Beak

Sometimes I was able to get shots showing the beads of water on their heads.

Loon

Their webbed feet are pretty large.

Loon Shows its Webbed Foot

There was a lot of looking into the water for fish.

Loons Looking for Fish

There was frequent "standing up" to shake their feathers out.

Shake it Out

Sometimes they splashed around a lot.

Splish Splash

I had remarked to my mother-in-law that I had never seen any loons flying in 20+ years of going to Maine. That's probably because I just never paid attention. I saw it happen several times this trip, but was only able to capture one event.

Loon Taking Flight

I was disappointed to see no juveniles for several days and I feared there weren't any this year. Boy was I wrong.

Juvenile Loon with Feathers Replacing Fur

Even Junior shakes the wings out every now and then.

I have Wings Too!

I had never seen loons stray into the shallows with the grasses and lilly pads before, until this trip.

Not Sure What's for Breakfast

And the largest group I saw had eight adults.

Eight Loons Together

So, including the juvenile, there were at least nine individuals there during this trip, up from at least seven last year. I'm pleased with the results this year, but I'll have to work at better depth of field next time I see a group. Because we usually visit late in the breeding season, we usually don't get to observe juveniles riding on a parent, and this year was typical: the juvenile was too big for riding.

OBNWR

After a long absence, I visited the refuge this past weekend. The eaglets and ospreys have all fledged, as I expected. I had one fleeting glimpse of an eagle, and the ospreys were very active. I got one series of shots of a mature osprey harassing a juvenile. The adult has the remnants of a fish.

Adult Harasses Juvenile

Kenai Fjords

We rode down the Kenai Peninsula in a bus under cloudy skies. We boarded a catamaran in Seward and proceeded out to Resurection Bay. This was our third trip to tidewater glaciers, and the only time when the gloomy overcast persisted.

Our captain was very talkative and she got us quickly to Rugged Island, where we lingered to watch a pod of fin whales who lazily blew and dove repeatedly. This pod has apparently been hanging around the bay this summer and I'm guessing she's seen them before and was in communication with the captain of another tour boat that was also observing the whales because she headed straight for them for 20 minutes.

Fin Whale

These are huge whales, and I have some shots with at least three animals together. The National Park Service posted online that they've seen as many as six of them.

Two Fin Whales Blowing

Once it seemed they went deep, a humpback whale appeared, repeatedly blowing and diving . It eventually showed its fluke, indicating the start of a deep dive, but then the fin whales reappeared, so we watched them a while longer. Eventually we moved on to another pair of humpbacks, including one that was repeatedly smacking its pectoral fins on the water with huge splashes that were clearly audible. This trip reinforced something that I already knew: it's hard to shoot an animal that has most of its body under water. I've previously tried to photograph manatees and beavers, with limited success because there's hardly anything above the water. Add the difficulty of shooting from a moving boat, one that's also pitching and rolling, and it's just about impossible to keep the horizon line level. So, I have some action shots that don't show much, and the horizons are all off.

Humpback Whale Extending its Pectoral Fin

Slamming the Water

Starting a Deep Dive

We proceeded to more islands where we watched puffins. I had always wondered how they could fly with such stubby wings. Answer: not well. It looked more like an uncontrolled fireworks rocket than a graceful flight. They beat their wings so fast that they look frantic. One seemed to have eaten so much that it couldn't lift off from the water; it kept skipping like a stone, repeatedly lifting a few inches above the water then bouncing off the surface again and again. They flitted around us everywhere. The poor light, their small size and eratic flight, and black and white plumage made them difficult subjects. Add the rolling motion of the boat, and the result is only a few barely usable images.

Puffins in Flight

It was a bit easier to get shots of the birds on land.

Puffins on the Rocks

On to Aialik Glacier... By now we had already visited Tracy Arm and Glacier Bay, and we had also seen quite a few other glaciers from a distance, so this was no longer a novelty. However, we saw lots of sea otters.

Aialik Glacier

Sea Otters

Aialik Glacier

Glacier Ice

Aialik Glacier

As we exited Aialik Bay, we stopped to check out the Steller Sea lions who had hauled out in large numbers on a rocky island. They were really loud, with two males vocalizing to establish dominance.

Steller Sea Lions Facing Off

And then the show was over as we headed back to Seward. This was one of my favorite outings of the whole trip to Alaska, bested only by the day in Tracy Arm.