Mississippi Eagles!

Oh wait, that is a Pelican isn't it? Well who would have thought to see a Pelican in this weather. I have to admit being a Midwesterner my whole life winter after 40+ years. The last two though I do have something to look forward to. Bald Eagles over the Mississippi River. As many other bodies of water start to freeze up the Bald Eagles migrate their way towards open water. Thanks to are Army Corp of Engineers and the Lock and Dam system there are many spots full of open water and an Eagles delicacy fresh fish. From about Thanksgiving on depending on the weather you will see the eagles start to pour into many different areas on the Mississippi. I'm sure all know that the Bald Eagle used to be an endangered species, those days are long gone with my own eyes counting easily in the 100s at a time. Now I get excited once again for winter as I get to take the long lenses out and explore as a wildlife photographer. Much fun.

What I've found recently is other birds as well along the river inlets. A Pelican in the snow was a recent visitor on this trip. I also unfortunately had an opportunity to relearn another problem first hand, how to stalk. Most don't seem to realize that it takes much patience to get birds up close. Even with long lenses. Unless your going to some places in Florida or other hot spots you can't just blunder in and expect to take close shots. As I was sneaking up on this pelican I had a Canon shooter with his 70-200 lens bump into me as I was stalking this bird on the ice amongst some Geese. Now the correct way to stalk is to not show your face and as you step forward give the bird nothing but your back, or at least hide your pasty face behind the lens(at least mine is pasty especially in winter). I figured I had at least a good hour of stalking before I could get real close to this bird. Well he decided to come up on one side and the birds started moving off in the other direction, since that didn't work for him he rotated all the way around past me to the other side and practically at a gallup plopped his tripod in the ground to try and get some pictures. Well guess what as you can see in this picture, I got the birds butt flying off.

Best moment was when he came back to me as I was packing up because all the birds LEFT after his intrusion. He was very excited for me, wanting to know if I had got them flying off. He seemed pleased that I might have gotten a great shot. I wanted to let him know that a great shot is difficult to get without the bird there.

This trip was a struggle, the snow started about 10:00am and kept coming. Not great weather when you need fast shutter speeds and low ISO. I think though it's going to make me make the switch from the D300 to the D700 though. I'll let the viewer take a guess on which were taken with the D3 and which with the D300. To my eye there was a huge difference looking at the 100% view.

Just a small gallery this time along, though I took hundreds I narrowed it down to the best of the bunch.

The whole gallery begins here.

A slideshow can be found here.

As Always please comment.