Within 10 feet of Bald Eagle Juvie in the wild!

nrmdisk

I was looking for my neighborhood Bald Eagle family yesterday, but the little ones have flown from the nest, so I went for a hike deep in the woods, knowing they wouldn't be too far away. As it began to get dark, and I was about to give up, I noticed one of the juvies sitting on a log in a pond at the bottom of a hill off the path - very hard to see under the dark trees. I took a few pics from the top of the hill, in case he flew away, and then over the next 30 to 45 minutes slowly crept down the hill until I was actually sitting on the same log he was on! Unfortunately, it was in a bunch of trees, and it was getting dark, so I had to use my Metz AF48 flash, giving him some strange looking eyes (the eagle equivalent of red-eye - I'll have to see if I can fix these in my PP software). The flash didn't bother him one bit. A young couple walking the same path decided to creep down next to me and the eagle must have been feeling a bit crowded and eventually flew off. VERY COOL experience being within 10 feet of such a powerful bird!

From the top of the hill, about 25 to 30 feet away:








I took these ones as I was sitting on the log next to him...my heart was pounding just a little :-)






He finally decided he'd had enough...


More images on the last two pages of this gallery:
http://nrmdisk.smugmug.com/gallery/5041917_54kst

dlplumer

Very cool set

Harv

Excellent series.