Early morning eagles.

December 27, 2018

I am learning that one of the things you do as a photographer is chase the light, particularly the golden hours around sunrise and sunset. I know a man who specializes in photographing sunrises. He regularly gets up at or before 4 am to check the weather, make coffee and decide if it's worth a drive to the spots that he knows will yield stunning sunrise photos.

I am not there yet, particularly with that getting up before 4 am business. However, I did find myself getting up and out before 7:30 am on a Sunday morning to take pictures of eagles. I feel that this is sort of the same thing.

Finding eagles is easy around here as eagles overwinter by the Oahe Dam about six miles out of town, attracted by the open water and cottonwood trees. Eagles are large, photogenic birds that unlike their smaller cousins don't flit. Generally if you are quiet and still they will be as well until something calls them to take flight. In populated areas they move if there is too much human activity below them. But sometimes they move for reasons known only to them. Hunger perhaps. Or maybe they want a different view.

One of the common roosting sites at the Dam is viewable by car which serves as a blind of sorts as cars don't seem to disturb eagles. Even though finding eagles here is easy photographing them is not because this vantage point faces west. A west facing vantage point means the light is behind the eagles in the afternoon golden hour. This does not make for great photos. In fact it doesn't make for good photos or even ok photos. To photograph these eagles you have to go out in the morning.

I used suncalc.org to verify that early morning sun would bathe them in a golden glow. The sun rose slightly to their south so first rays of morning light would illuminate them on one side which would mean shadows. But it was golden light and besides I had no choice.

I arrived at the vantage point in the cold gray of civil twilight. The moon was brilliant, almost full. I spotted three eagles, one of them well within range of my zoom. Huzzah! I might get an extreme close up. I rolled down the window and set up the camera, attaching it to a Gorilla tripod and perching the tripod on the door. Snuggled under my down coat with an insulated tumbler of hot tea, I was ready.

It had been a few months since I was outside to watch the sunrise and I can't remember the last time I did so during the winter. First, the sky changes from gray to a light blue. Then, the tops of the trees blush with the pink light. The trees glow as the brightening light slips towards the ground and the blue in the sky deepens, steadily, silently until all of a sudden, the sun is up and everything is illuminated.

Just before this solar culmination, the eagle that was nearest to me flew to other eagles a little further away. The other eagles were within range of my zoom but they weren't well within range. No extreme close ups, sadly. That eagle shortly thereafter moved on.

I spent the next hour or so snapping away. As usual I got a lot of duds but I did have a few highlights. The first was I got a nice series of two eagles joining the eagles in the not so close tree. Even though I didn't get the extreme close up you can see the open beaks as they vocalized to each other.

Also, two of the eagles seemed to enjoy being in close physical contact. They stayed right next to each other. It was kind of cute.

Eventually I decided to call it good and slowly and I hope quietly (my next car is going to be electric for precisely these kinds of moments) I drove away. I spied more eagles flying as I left and of course I had to follow.

It wasn't a great shot what with branches in the way and the eagle not facing me, but I did get my extreme close up.