Eagles

[Native Vermonter]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

We go there most every winter. Entertaining to watch the eagles chase off the vultures that are always trying to steal anything they can.
Very enjoyable way to spend several hours before a late lunch at the Backfin in Port Deposit or 'up the hill' at the Old South Smokehouse. We live along a lake and have a couple of nesting pairs that are hanging around this year as the lake has not frozen. Most years they move further south.

I’ve spent many a bone chilling day there...it is tough to get a spot now with distancing and I think they are limiting the number of photographers now. Lots of other opportunities down here though...

[clpetersen]

Great shots! That is a serious lens, too.

[Native Vermonter]

Thanks, this was taken with a Nikon D800, and a handheld f2.8 300mm (VR) lens. I took my GF on an excursion called Eagles on the James up near Richmond. Cap’n Dan takes ya up the York River about 10 miles in a small boat. On the way you pass thru the individual territories of several permanent resident eagles; when he spots one in a familiar tree, he goes up river just a bit more and kills the engine. As ya slowly drift down river, Dan pitches a fish (dead) in the water and ya wait. I tracked eagles all day long; from launch, to approach, to catch, to departure.

This was during the summer so there were heron and osprey in the area as well. Same drill - find em, lazily float by with no engine and wait. Best couple hours in my life...

[bart]

We have a couple of highly skilled photographers at AudioAficionado!

[sandecker]

Great photos [emoji2]

[thughes]

downloaded the current LR/PS versions, and I'm learning them all over again. Old dawg, new tricks...

... the piece of the new Photoshop that throws me the most is resizing a photo. You no longer have to hold down the shift key to pull from the corner to avoid distorting the photo. You just pull from the corner.

[Native Vermonter]

Originally Posted by thughes

... the piece of the new Photoshop that throws me the most is resizing a photo. You no longer have to hold down the shift key to pull from the corner to avoid distorting the photo. You just pull from the corner.

Yeah, lots of new stuff to learn. I had catalogues setup in the legacy edition of Lightroom, categorized by subject (eagles, heron, osprey etc). When I try to open one of them in the current LR I am told there are no photos in the catalogue, yet the native NEF files are exactly where they were before.

Not a huge deal since I still have the originals, but now I get to review/rename/regroup prolly 30,000 photos. Good opportunity to do some selective deleting too...

[Cohibaman]

Nice pics!

[Formerly YB-2]

Originally Posted by Native Vermonter

I’ve spent many a bone chilling day there...it is tough to get a spot now with distancing and I think they are limiting the number of photographers now. Lots of other opportunities down here though...

In the 40's towards the end of next week, so hope to get down if one of the days is dry. Something less than two hour's drive for us. We also enjoy the Forsythe Refuge, which <30min away, and Eastern Neck, which is quite a bit closer to you.

On our last visit an immature bald eagle grabbed a fish and flew to one of the lower limbs in a large tree about 30' from where we were sitting. He/she clamped the fish under its foot commenced to feed. Soon there was a line of four black vultures on the same limb about 6' further out. Slowly they would inch closer to the eagle. When they got too close he would squawk and ruffle his feathers and they would scurry back out to 6' and everything would start over. Most entertaining.

Rarely occurs to me to take pic's, but I'll take along my camera next trip. Or at least remember to use my phone.

[Native Vermonter]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

In the 40's towards the end of next week, so hope to get down if one of the days is dry. Something less than two hour's drive for us. We also enjoy the Forsythe Refuge, which <30min away, and Eastern Neck, which is quite a bit closer to you.

On our last visit an immature bald eagle grabbed a fish and flew to one of the lower limbs in a large tree about 30' from where we were sitting. He/she clamped the fish under its foot commenced to feed. Soon there was a line of four black vultures on the same limb about 6' further out. Slowly they would inch closer to the eagle. When they got too close he would squawk and ruffle his feathers and they would scurry back out to 6' and everything would start over. Most entertaining.

Rarely occurs to me to take pic's, but I'll take along my camera next trip. Or at least remember to use my phone.

I hope to make it up there soon...one of my best friends lives in Alexandria so we stage outta there, go up for the day and then come back. Thinking of hoteling up there the night before to avoid a 0300 wakeup call...

I'll have some more eagle shots to post later on today...