I had a fun visit to the Ridgefield NWR, March 4, 2020, with mostly sunny skies. This seemed to be ‘soaring eagles’ day. Many mature birds and juvies were soaring high out of the reach of my camera during the day. But they did perch in trees at times and I found a mature and a juvie in the same tree at the same height in the tree–about 10 feet apart. Problem was I figured the distance from me to the tree was at least 200 yards. So I put the 2x extender on my 500mm and used a bean bag (in my vehicle) along with the camera’s ‘live view’ mode, which allows me to digitally zoom way in and manually focus the lens (since auto focus can be a little tricky at long distances) by looking at the camera’s display screen. I took numerous stills of the mature bird over the next half hour, during which time it periodically called out. Hoping the bird being called might come to visit, I waited patiently–always ready to shoot. All of a sudden a second juvenile bird flew right at the tree causing the mature bird to leap into flight–which is depicted here. It’s very possible that the approaching juvenile and the perched one are both the young of this mature eagle. The perched juvenile stayed where it was during this action and the approaching juvenile and mature bird both went into soaring mode for a while. Good times!
Canon 5D Mark IV, 1/2500, f8, ISO 1000, 1000mm (500 + 2x), 4:34 p.m.
