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You're Mine!
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Bald eagle approaching a seal carcass. She surprised me; I thought they had left for the day and was walking out to the beach when she came right at me! She was not headed for me, though, but for the seal.
I have not read anything about this but bald eagles seem to need a lot of fresh water. They drink considerable quantities of water after every meal and several times throughout the day. They also bathe frequently.
Exposure is difficult, especially on surprise backlit pictures like this. However, shooting RAW enables me to retrieve a lot of highlights on the head and shadows in the body that would otherwise be lost.
Bald eagles are not the solitary 'lone eagles' of popular imagination. They often gather in quite large groups. As many as 60 at a time have been sighted in our area, walking about and squawking, oddly reminding me of so many chickens. Although the bald eagle is no longer considered to be threatened, they are still protected in the US as the national symbol. They have made an amazing recovery since their numbers were reduced to a few hundred birds in all of the US in the late '60s. Banning the use of DDT was probably the biggest factor in restoring the numbers of these eagles.
Bald eagles have been known to attack and kill small animals, sometimes with two eagles working together. If the animal is too large to carry back to the nest, they will eat it where they killed it, as here. Their preferred diet is fish, but something like a seal has a lot of fat and protein energy. If other eagles find out about it, they will gather from long distances and fight over it.
There is a definite pecking order for eating this seal. The female eats first, and the rest stay away. After she is done, the youths are free to eat, although the male will chase them off when he is hungry. One of the youths rebelled this morning by refusing to leave when the male showed up and the male had to teach him a rough lesson in manners. I was not ready or you can be sure that I would have photographed the fight, no matter how bad the light was!
I have seen web sites that claim that bald eagles are successful in catching a fish only one in eighteen tries. Those people must be observing some clumsy eagles there. Hood Canal bald eagles seem to succeed at least 2/3 of the time. But they will not fish as long as there is something to scavenge.
If I am going to keep doing this I need to get something like a Better Beamer. |
bobair, Finland_in_Eton has marked this note useful
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- trinko
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 610 W: 83 N: 324]](http://i1.treknature.com/misc/g-g-g.gif)
(4310) - [2007-02-23 20:16]
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excellent action capture! good focus. i'd probably try and darken the background a bit though.
Awesome capture! Great POV and focus is sharp, providing excellent detail on wings. Nice composition, too. Very informative notes. TFS
Hi Christopher,
A real good capture with good details, You could have underexposed 1 stop and avoided the harsh lighting on the bird. The moment u have captured is perfect with good POV.
Tfs & happyweekend,
Pawan
Oportuna toma donde se aprecia toda la gran grandeza de este ave. Interesante ya que se aprecia también parte del hábitat de este animal.
Un saludo desde España: J. Ignasi
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