Good Start For 2012

Hope all readers of this blog have a great 2012!  The first day of the new year makes me reflect on what I did or didn’t do on my mental list.  I never write down resolutions as they just don’t get completed and writing them down makes me feel guilty if I don’t do them so just reflect and make a mental list.  Maybe this year I will make a general list to refer to and see how that goes.

New Years Day here was sunny with moderate temperatures around 40.  We packed up our food and gifts to travel to our last Christmas gathering of John’s family and before we crossed the river we noticed 3 large birds just soaring overhead.  Since I had my camera with me I had John stop and I changed to my 55-250 zoom lens and shot a few photos.  After I got zoomed in I could see they were not adult Bald Eagles as they did not have white heads and tails but we both concluded they were juvenile Bald Eagles as they were way too large to be hawks, wrong kind of head to be vultures and we don’t have Golden Eagles here.I had zoomed up as far as I could and then when I edited this photo I cropped it to get the eagles the size you could see them.  I was lucky to get two in one photo as they were not that close together most of the time.

We continued on and stopped on the bridge over the river as there were two adults sitting in a tree just north of the bridge where the river rounds a bend.  As you can see this is a small river.If you look closely at the above photo you can see the two specks that are the adult Bald Eagles.  This photo was not zoomed clear to the max so took more zoomed up and then cropped to make them easy to see.  It is always so exciting to spot one of these magnificent birds and to see more than one is super exciting.  I wanted a photo of the adults flying so as we were parked on the bridge (no traffic on our highway by the way – think one pickup came by the whole time we sat there.)  John beeped the car horn and they didn’t move so he got out and flapped his arms – wish I would have gotten a video of that but instead I concentrated my camera on the eagles.  The one on the right flew in a big circle then back to the same branch but I did manage to get a shot of it a ways away.  Again I was zoomed to the max then cropped the photo to get it to the size you can see.  It is not perfectly in focus but you can see some of the markings and it’s eye.Here is the original photo of this one so you can see how much I cropped it.  I am guessing it was between 1/8 to 1/4 of a mile away.After leaving the bridge we saw another adult flying then as we crossed the next intersecting highway bridge over the same river we spotted another adult sitting in a tree.  That is the most we have seen this season.  We have seen one Bald Eagle at a time occasionally but not every time we cross the river and once in a while one flies close to our house.  Four adults and 3 juveniles is wonderful!  No matter how many times we see them we are always in awe and try to stop and watch them for a while. 

What a great way to start our new year!

Until Later,
Lynn