Eagles

Continuing with photos from my book Birds of Western United States we come to Eagles:

Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle with 20 pound Salmon

Bald Eagles Fighting

Bad Eagle

Juvenile Bald Eagle

Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle

Winter Wildlife Photos: Bald Eagle

Continuing my series on Winter Wildlife we come to the Bald Eagle.

One morning shortly after moving to Southern Arizona from the Northwest, I met an "older" man who was retired and who fished every day at Columbus Lake in West Tucson. He was so excited because earlier that morning there was quite a commotion: a Bald Eagle there at the lake. It was the first Bald Eagle he had ever seen. I let him enjoy his story saying, "That must have been quite a thrill."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that Bald Eagles are common in Western Washington; that in fact, in the winter along the Skagit River, you could relatively easily find 100 of the 500 Bald Eagles that hunt along the Skagit for Chum Salmon.

Here is a photo of one of those Bald Eagles sitting on top of what looks to be a 20 pound salmon:

Bald Eagle with 20 pound Chum Salmon

Animal Signs: Tundra Swans

Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge (along the Oregon/California border) is a wintering birding site for waterfowl. With such a nice menu, Bald Eagles also winter there:

Tundra Swans and Bald Eagle

Bald Eagles as "vultures" waiting for a nice Swan Dinner

Animal Signs: Bald Eagle

Next up in our "Animal Signs" series is a Bald Eagle perching on a sign:

Bald Eagle

Birds with Fish: Bald Eagle

Back on April 29th I started a series on Birds with Fish (having just completed a series on Birds Eating Bugs). That series was interrupted by several birding trips yielding good photos. Now, it's June 13th, no more scheduled birding trips for another 10 days, so I'll try to finish the Birds with Fish series.

Today's photo comes from the Skagit River in the Washington State Cascade Mountains. The Skagit River is a favorite spawning ground for King (Chinook), Red (Sockeye), Silver (Coho), Pink (Humpy), and Chum (Dog) salmon. It is also a major spawning ground for Steelhead Trout.

With such a feast available, it is a favorite dining spot for Bald Eagles. Between November and January, 500-600 Bald Eagles live along its banks, feeding on the salmon once the salmon die.

Here is an adult Bald Eagle sitting on a 30ish pound salmon (probably a King).

Bald Eagle with Salmon on Skagit River, Washington

Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge - Part I

On my way to Yellowstone National Park I took a side trip to Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Wyoming. Seedskadee is 26,000 acres along the Green River in an area that was inhabited by the Shoshone people since about 1300. Seedskadee is derived from their language and means "river of the prairie hen." 

It is a haven for over 200 species of birds including Trumpeter Swans, White Pelicans, Bald Eagles, and of course, Sage Hens. Mammals include Moose, Pronghorn, Porcupine, Mule Deer, and Bobcat.

Here are some Bald Eagle photos I was able to get:

Adult Bald Eagle

Juvenile Bald Eagle

Juvenile Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle IV

The last of my "5" rated Bald Eagles was especially nice. 

Unlike other photographic specialties: portrait, landscape, industrial, architecture, etc. wildlife photographers sometimes have less than 5 seconds to get a photo. If it doesn't happen, or if the photo doesn't turn out, you've missed a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

I was traveling on a back country road in Northern California among rolling hillsides. As I was climbing I saw two Bald Eagles that appeared to be dancing. I quickly got to a point where I was parallel to them, pulled over, stopped the jeep, grabbed my camera, got out and started taking photos. Of those photos this is the one I like best. The eagles were fighting at this point with one upside down and almost a mirror-image of the first. 

The entire event took less than 30 seconds.  Then they were gone.

Bald Eagles Fighting in Flight

Bald Eagle III

I realize that in many parts of the US there are no Bald Eagles or that they are rarely seen. Not so in the Northwest. Although, at one point the number of Bald Eagles had been reduced to less than 500 pairs in the lower 48 states, the numbers are back up to around 4500 nesting pairs now. In fact, the Bald Eagle was removed from the Endangered Species List in 2007. 

You would never know how rare they are if you lived in the Northwest. I remember once a friend coming to visit and upon seeing one, saying it was the first Bald Eagle she had ever seen. Yet, on a normal winter day along the Skagit River in Washington you can see around 300 Bald Eagles. On some days, as many as 700 can be seen. The Skagit River is one of the few rivers where all 5 Pacific salmon species spawn. (Chinook, also called Kings; Coho, also called Silvers; Chum, also called Dogs; Pink, also called Humpies; and Sockeye, also called Reds).

I once counted 40 Bald Eagles in a single tree. The problem, as a photographer, is "how to capture" that photo. You have to be far enough away to be able to get the entire tree in the frame. But, at such distance you loose a lot of detail and clarity. Of the many photos I have taken of large groups of Bald Eagles, none have made it to a "5" rating. Close-ups are a different story. In the photo below a Bald Eagle is sitting on what appears to be a 25-30 pound salmon that has come up the Skagit River to spawn. The Eagles will take some before they spawn, but most are taken after the fact as the salmon begin to die. It is the salmon that bring the Bald Eagles.

Bald Eagle with Salmon on the Skagit River (Washington)

Bald Eagle II

I guess living in the Northwest afforded many opportunities to photograph Bald Eagles, so several have ended up being rated a "5". This one is from Tule Lake in Northern California:

Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle

On to my "5" rated "B's", and first up: the Bald Eagle. Living in the Northwest provides an opportunity to see Bald Eagles frequently  -- as opposed to the very, very rare occasion that you see one in Southern Arizona. In one of my first trips (January, 1996) to Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, which is along the Oregon-California Border, I was able to get very close to a Bald Eagle perching on a pole. When I got to about 15 feet he decided to fly away. Here's the result:

Bald Eagle: Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

Note: many of my early photos were with a lower quality camera. Over the years I have lost many of the negatives or slides and was left with only a print. Scanning the print hasn't always yielded the best result. So this is a scan of a print. Nonetheless, I like this well enough to include it as a "5" rated photo.

Pairs of Two: Seven

And, sometimes it's a pair fighting:

Bald Eagles about to lock talons and go into a free fall (Northern California)

Feral Horses fighting (60 miles north of Hinton, Alberta, Canada)

Island Lake, British Columbia

So how did I get interested in Wildlife Photography?  Well it all started with my "flyfishing career". I would go up into British Columbia (the flyfishing capitol of the world -- well, at least North America). I would be out on a lake fishing when bear, moose, elk walked down to the lakeshore to drink and eat. After years of flyfishing I decided it was time to buy a camera. As it turns out, when I went fishing I would spend most of my time looking for that bear, moose, or elk to photograph. There are lots of stories here, but let me just say that on my return trip from five days at Island Lake (BC) one year I realized that I had actually not gotten in the water the entire time -- didn't even take out my fly rod. It occurred to me that my interest had changed. I was now a wildlife photographer.  

To get to Island Lake you must go around the Highland Valley Copper Mine which is the largest open pit copper mine in Canada and is one of the largest in the world in terms of tonnage mined and milled. The operation employs approximately 900 people. I took photos of the mine and of those huge dump trucks. But, alas, those photos never got scanned into my computer. But, .....

Here are some very early photos from Island Lake (all from the early 90's):

My first Bald Eagle photo

My first(Cinnamon) Black Bear photo

Or was this the first?

A young colt I scared that ran through a creek.

A Common Loon, taken from my "float tube" (fly fishing vessel)

Another Common Loon photo while fishing.

National Wildlife Refuges

Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, California, 1908

The Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, located in rural northeastern California and southern Oregon, was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 as the nation's first waterfowl refuge. The refuge, with a backdrop of 14,000-foot Mount Shasta to the southwest, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as both a National Historic Landmark and a National Natural Landmark.

The 50,092-acre refuge is a varied mix of intensively managed shallow marshes, open water, grassy uplands, and croplands that provide feeding, resting, nesting, and brood-rearing habitat for waterfowl and other water birds. This refuge is one of the most biologically productive refuges within the Pacific Flyway.

Approximately 80 percent of the flyway's migrating waterfowl pass through the Klamath Basin on both spring and fall migrations, with 50 percent using the refuge. Peak waterfowl populations can reach 1.8 million birds, which represent 15 to 45 percent of the total birds wintering in California. The refuge produces between 30,000 and 60,000 waterfowl annually.

The refuge is also a fall staging area for 20 to 30 percent of the central valley population of sandhill crane. From 20,000 to 100,000 shorebirds use refuge wetlands during the spring migration. Wintering wildlife populations include 500 bald eagle and 30,000 tundra swan. Spring and summer nesting wildlife include many colonial water birds, such as white-faced ibis, heron, egret, cormorant, grebe, white pelican, and gulls. 

I visited LKNWR many times during the mid to late nineties. It is one of the great wildlife refuges in the US. I'll show you a variety of photos that I have taken there.

Lower Klamath at Sunrise

Bald Eagle

Northern Pintail

Red Tailed Hawk along the auto tour and pointing the way to turn

Ross Geese with snow covered mountains in the background

Tundra Swan with Bald Eagle waiting for dinner

Lone Tundra Swan among the Canada Geese

White Fronted Geese with Ross Geese

Willet eating an insect it plucked off the shoreline

Plumage Changes

I thought maybe a few photos on how plumage changes in some birds as they grow from the juvenile stage to that of an adult. 

While most birds go through stages of changes until they reach the juvenile stage, some have distinct changes going from Juvenile to Adult. 

Bald eagles go through one of the most varied plumage changes of any North American bird. During its first four weeks of life, an eaglet's fluffy white down changes to a gray wooly down. At about five weeks, brown and black feathers begin to grow. It becomes fully feathered at 10 weeks of age. In its first year, the mostly dark-colored juvenile can often be mistaken as a golden eagle. Living in the Northwest I have seen this many times. -- i.e. not knowing for sure whether I was seeing a Golden Eagle or a Juvenile Bald Eagle. However, the bald eagle progressively changes until it reaches adult plumage at five years. 

Juvenile Bald Eagle -- which could be four years old. 

Adult Bald Eagle -- at least five years old.

Advent Calendar - December 16th

Every winter hundreds of Bald Eagles come to poach salmon on the Skagit River in Western Washington. The Skagit River runs from a mountaintop of the Cascades to the Puget Sound. The Skagit floodplain is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. Tideflats, estuaries and farm fields draw tens of thousands of Wrangel Island (Siberia) Snow Geese (tomorrow's post) each winter, as well as trumpeter swans and countless shorebirds on their great migrations. What brings people, though, are the Bald Eagles. Last year's count on December 15th was 285 Bald Eagles. The highest count last year was 410 on December 22nd. On January 7, 2009 there were 859 counted. (The count includes only eagles that are actually seen by experienced personnel & include those seen in areas inaccessible to the general public.)  What brings the Bald Eagles are the Salmon, mostly Kings (also called Chinook) which come up the Skagit each winter. Here's a Bald Eagle standing on what appears to be a 25-30 pound salmon:

Bald Eagle with King Salmon

Predators with Their Prey: Raptors

Raptors don't have an easy time of it either. However, they succeed often enough to survive.

Bald Eagle with 30 pound Salmon

The rare Gray Hawk with a bird of some kind

Osprey with 24 inch Rainbow Trout

Sharp Shinned Hawk with Mourning Dove

Yes, and a Turkey Vulture with a Coyote

Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge

Since moving to Arizona in 2002, getting to some of my favorite places has been a little more problematic. When I can get away from the B&B for more than a few days (on a photo trip) I tend to head to Colorado or Wyoming. Of course there is the obligatory stop in Flagstaff to see our grandchildren -- well, their mom and dad too. But, I am usually in search of Mountain Goats or Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep on Mount Evans, or Moose in Northwestern Colorado, or Grizzlies and Wolves in Yellowstone.

So, some of my favorite watering holes have been neglected. One such favorite is Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge which is along the central Oregon/California border.

Winters there are the best time -- but, of course -- our busiest time and so impossible to get away. Hundreds of thousands of birds flock to the icy shallow lakes: ducks, geese, and swans en mass. Here are some photos:

Ross Geese

Tundra Swans and White Fronted Geese

Tundra Swans

 However, with all the birds come the predators! Bald Eagles are like the Mafia here, waiting for the right time to kill. For them "it's not personal, it's just business." Of course with all the Swans, Thanksgiving Day Feast comes every day for the Bald Eagle.

Tundra Swans with Bald Eagles in Background

Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle Close-Up

Tundra Swans Flying

Lone Tundra Swan "hiding" among Canada Geese