Darling Run Eagles have Fledged

We were in the area of the Darling Run nest on Friday and decided to stop by to see if the eagles were hanging around even though we knew the three chicks had fledged.  We were surprised to see that all three emmies and both adults were still hanging around the nest area.  They were all perched along Pine Creek looking for fish.   It was heavily overcast and there was a haze in the air.  I had to shoot at higher ISO settings than I normally do for eagles to keep the shutter speed at acceptable levels for the long lens.  I tried the stabilization on and off and continue to find regardless of what either Nikon or Canon say about their new VR and IS controls--using image stabilization while on the tripod actually reduces sharpness of images.

Since the lighting was poor, I had to bring back the contrast in Photoshop to make the images appear as we saw the images with our eye.  This is one of the reasons that I shoot all my images in RAW only.  If I had shot them in jpg,  the images would have been worthless.

The eagles at Darling Run are very accustomed to people and they sit still while people travel up and down the trail.  They even sit on a branch over the trail within 20 feet of hikers and bikers at times.  The only time I have seen them take careful notice is when a horse goes by.  This adult seemed nervous when I could hear a horse coming and then when it came into view on the trail, the eagle "tracked" it until it was out of sight.

Here is one of the three immature eagles from the Darling Run nest-using a perch that the adults use often.   It is interesting how they are such creatures of habit.

It has already mastered the "eagle eye" stare.  There was a flock of geese floating around beneath it and it kept a close watch of them.

Until Next time....

Jim 

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