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.
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| Bald Eagle with Fish |
Here's another shot from the same sequence.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Snatch! |
Then it flew right past me with its catch.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| About to Strike |
And here's a shot from a different sequence of the elusive glance at the catch.
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| 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.
