Month: December 2015

The weather was colder and the sky was grayer but the convocation of eagles was larger and more active than the day before.  And, after Eric and a local Haines resident, who set up his camera by us, suggested I change a setting on my camera to keep the auto focus locked on the moving subject for the longest duration, everything changed for me.  I was suddenly able to track a moving eagle while retaining focus. . . not every time, but, I managed to pan and retain focus on one of the more interesting events that we witnessed that day. . .one eagle stalking, then stealing, a half eaten salmon, and then flying directly toward us with his stolen bounty. I took 71 shots in this sequence that lasted 31 seconds. Five of those 31 seconds show the eagle, head thrust back, verbalizing its victory. I didn’t include those shots because the eagle was behind a snow bank with only its head and shoulders visible.

I clipped some wingtips and in one shot, I clipped the entire right wing, but I retained focus while the eagle flew directly toward me until it was too close and the camera couldn’t focus any more.  The eagle flew over us and through the trees and landed on a branch that was exposed enough that we were able to photograph him consuming his prize.  I took the first eight shots with the D800 set to high speed crop mode and the 600mm lens with the 1.7 teleconverter.  The last shot, was a hand held shot using the D7100 with the 80-400 lens at 400mm. Viewing the eagle’s face head on makes it appear as if it’s smiling with self satisfaction, having wrested the fish carcass from the other eagles and the scavenging crows .

There aren’t as many bald eagles in Haines this year because the chum salmon run that draws them here year after year did not materialize.  There are still dozens of eagles here though and they seem not to be bothered by the presence of man.  I’ve read that is due to eons of cohabitation by eagles and man in the Haines area.  This majestic eagle perched about 20 feet above us for the entire five hours we were shooting beneath him.  When I focused my 600mm lens attached to the D7100 with the 1.4 teleconverter attached, this eagle’s head practically filled the frame with lots of different expressions.  And, I just love it when I capture a bird’s  nictitaing membrane, the membrane that covers the bird’s eyeball, as I did with this eagle.

 

Richard, Eric, and I arrived in Haines  midday Sunday after a 5 hour ferry ride from Juneau.  On the ferry, we dozed,  ate breakfast, and ventured outside only to be driven back inside by cold, fierce winds.  It was mid afternoon by the time we got settled into our accommodations  so when we drove to the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, an Alaska State Park with viewing areas alongside the highway, the sun was within an hour of setting.  We were concerned at first because as we drove up the highway, we saw no eagles until we got closer to the viewing areas.  We were relieved that the eagles started to appear in trees and on the ice.   We pulled into the viewing area  and set up our cameras near the water’s edge.  We considered this first afternoon more of a dry run, not expecting to get many good shots.  The dim light is challenging.  None of what I captured on this first day in Haines is what I consider decent.  The exposure is marginal and the focus not at all tack sharp.  I have several days to get it right.  I’m hoping I will get at least a few good photographs by the end of the trip.  I captured a few shots of some perching eagles and the struggle of a  young bald eagle trying to extricate something to eat imbedded in the ice.

 

There were still a couple of hours of daylight remaining when I landed in Juneau about 1PM.  I asked at the hotel what I could do and they suggested taking a taxi to the Mendenhall Glacier.  The taxi dropped me off about 2:20 and I arranged for it to return at 3:30 when the sun set.  There were lots of other people out there, some walking their dogs, one photographer using the glacier as a background for clients getting pregnancy announcement photographs, and others just looking from the designated lookouts.  I decided I wanted to get as close as possible and followed the beach for a while.  It’s a large area and the trails, while marked, aren’t marked well enough for a directionally challenged person like me so I kept my eye on various groups of people ahead of me.  I forded a couple of shallow creeks but balked at one that would have required me to step in a foot of water.   I didn’t have time to find the less challenging trail before dark so I didn’t get right up to the glacier.  I took all of these shots within the hour before sunset, not exactly golden hour in this frigid area.

It was raining in Seattle Saturday when we flew out of SeaTac but when we flew into Juneau, it was overcast and dry.

 

My friend, Carly, a wildlife biologist, keeps an aquarium filled with exotic corals and a few small fish.  I tried to take photographs through the glass which had a slight film of algae and when she added a little food to entice the fish out of hiding, the water got a little murky.  I’ll have to go back some day when the glass and water are a little more clear. The lighting was an intense blue color so I made a few white balance adjustments to bring out the color.  I used a tripod but the refraction through the glass and the water prevented tack sharp (or even marginally sharp) focus.  The first shot is some sort of goby (I think) and the second shot  is a coral .  I discovered that WordPress will display photos in circular format so I thought I’d try something different.

 

Fall is fading into winter.  The leaves on this bonsai valley oak are yellowing and will soon fall.