white-tailed eagle

Last eagle shot of the excursion as Harry sails homeward with his fish.

This is one of my favourite shots from that day. I really love the odd-looking mid-wingstroke "pose" and the spread talons showing the size of those feet. The fish was a good half-kilo - about the size of fish I would buy for dinner for husband and myself. I have to get to the gym for...

Even from a distance, on a quiet day you can hear the "fwoosh" of those big wings, and even almost feel the backdraft.

The speed of these bird's snatch and take-off makes human takeaway look like slow food. It took my camera longer to record this than it took for Harry to make the snatch and fly out of the frame. Luckily, the camera can buffer a number of shots while in burst mode, then catch up with itself...

Harry made the grab with his back to us. So not a classic talons-first profile shot, but he did give us a great close-up view of that back plumage. Also unfortunately, the grab was too fast for me to twist the zoom ring further in to get him all in the frame, but then having his wing tips...

Then we got reeeeeally close. This one's taken at 250mm. Slightly cropped here for better framing since I'd had to "cut off" his legs, but still ... As you can see, Harry has turned his eyes back towards us after pointedly turning away to "ignore" us. Since we didn't take...

Our guides maneuvered the boat a bit this way and that so all of us got good views regardless where we were sitting. Here I think the boat was closer, and now Harry is beginning to look a bit uncomfortable about our invasiveness. He's hunched forward and is beginning to shrug up his shoulders...

The previous shot was taken with the lens at full extension, 600mm. Now we slowly motored closer. This shot I had to turn the camera sideways and dial the lens back to fit him in - 400 mm. Harry is looking straight at us but seems totally calm.

The eagle pair here called 4 and 5 (just because they were the 4th and 5th eagles we saw that day) were also the turning point of our excursion. On the way back we stopped briefly in eagle 3's territory. Our guides held up a fish to see if he was interested in making another try. He had taken...

... his mate was watching from atop a tree on the next island. She seemed to have some plastic stuck on her bill, but managed to shake or rub it off later. Our guides joked that the male was in for an earful when he got home to the nest that night. That's what you get for being so greedy.

As I said yesterday, I missed the grab shot of this one. As we watched him fly away with his fish, we speculated out loud whether he was headed to the nest. Nope. No food for the wife or kiddies this time. He settled down on a little island and ate the fish all by himself. Meanwhile ...

Eyes fixed on the fish, the eagle wheels around for the dive and grab. I missed the grab this time. Wasn't fast enough turning around. Might not have caught it anyway as it would have been partly hidden from me by the wheelhouse. Oh well. Wasn't my turn. The other guests got a better view this time.

Looking straight at us, or more likely through us. Probably looking straight at the fish, which had been tossed at the other end of the boat.

We left the GBBG to it and motored on to the next eagle territory. One of the eagles there (probably the male, as it's usually the males who do the fishing, we were told) took to the air pretty much as soon as he saw us. So our guides tossed the fish in the water for him.

Eagle3 flew by us again, but that was just him heading back to his island base. He was giving up, as our guides told us he had the day before as well. They had offered him another fish on their way back the day before, and he had managed to take that one. So we started motoring on to the next...

One last chase-off shot.

We last saw the eagle3 making one final attempt at grabbing the fish, but as he approached one of the gulls was waiting to head him off.

Sorry I haven't done any browsing today. Been out on a long hike. Will try to catch up tomorrow when it starts raining again. Meanwhile, I think you'll agree that Eagle3 from our trip gave us some excellent views when he made that one last pass around the boat to see if he could get clear of the...

After a bit, it seemed the eagle decided it was either grab that fish or give up. He swung into a circle closer to the boat and our guides were pretty sure he was about to make a grab for the fish. That close swing around the boat gave me possibly my best flight shots of the whole day. I'll get...

As I recall there were more like four or five gulls involved in the chase, but at any given moment only one or two got close enough that they were in the frame. However, the sheer numbers made it all the more difficult for the eagle to maneuver out of their range or above and behind them to...

Now one of the gulls was getting really bold and cheeky. He'd maneuvered himself into a safe spot above and behind the eagle and I actually caught him giving the eagle a nip in one of his primaries :eek!: Does this one count as my Saturday Fun Shot for the week?