Post by baja252 on Jan 27, 2014 20:26:12 GMT -6
Well I haven't taken too many photos lately. It’s been cold and the E's have been away a lot enjoying their time off. They do fly by all the time but even Stein rarely stops this time of year.
Jlr in the chat (protecting her real name in case the NSA is reading) has been seeing a lot of eagles below the dam. I have heard several times that the cold weather this winter is driving them down from Canada. I’m not 100% sure if that's right, but who cares, more eagles at the lake is a good thing. Jlr is even getting good photos of them fishing! This I need to see.
A really good series of photos, of an eagle grabbing a fish is something that has eluded me so far. I've seen it many times, but it happens so fast I just haven't got it on film. I mean memory card, but that doesn't sound right does it ?
I see that it's supposed to be sunny and 55 degrees on Sunday, so I get up early and head to the lake. The first thing most "lake people" do when they first see the lake is take note of the water level. This time of year it’s also ice that we are concerned about. The first time I see the lake is in the town of Gravois Mills. The Gravois Arm of the lake starts about a mile and a half from the nest and winds about 10 miles to the north. When I round the bend on the highway I see the water level has gone down and a thin sheet of ice has formed over the shallow water.
Now go back and look at that photo again. See it? An eagle is sitting on the ice.
She landed as I was crossing the bridge. I say she, because even way out on the ice I was struck by the size of it, she was huge. Maybe it’s Elsie? As the eagle fly's it’s about 10 - 15 miles from the nest so it could be, but I'm thinking no. Jlr lives about a mile or so from here and she regularly see a pair of eagles in the area. I'm betting it's one of those. About this time I see the mate flying behind me.
After watching them for a while I got back on the road. Instead of going to the house I turned off and decided to stop by the nest. A very good decision if I do say, both E’s were at the old nest.
It was a beautiful sunny day and they were soaking up the morning sun. I just sat in the truck for a little while and watched; I’m always worried about scaring them off. After several minutes I decided to get out and find that one spot that lets me get a clear shot thru all the trees. Lucky for me it was right over the hood of the truck, so I had a comfortable spot to watch from. I took a few photos, but just mostly watched them thru my camera.
A deer ran across the road and got Elsie’s attention. She really followed that deer until he went out of sight.
Stein wasn’t very interested in the deer and apparently he wasn’t too happy. He started screaming at Elsie.
He leans over and screams right in her ear. It was very reminiscent of Ozark’s screaming.
She wants no part of that and moves away from him.
He isn’t done screaming at her, so he moves down the branch towards her.
She moves away again and he follows right after her.
He follows her even further down the branch. Most of the time it’s very hard to tell what’s going on thru the camera, I just sensed that something was going to happen as I held down the shutter button on the camera. I was assuming they were going to mate, but there has been much speculation on the strength of that dead limb they sit on so I wanted to ready in case the branch broke off with their combined weight. Stein continues to pursue her down the branch. I didn’t know this at the time, but in looking at the photos, she doesn’t really seem too interested.
Elsie has moved so much, she has almost reached the proverbial fork in the road. She stops and Stein seems to be very happy with that!
Now at this point, I must issue the following warning.
My comments and photos might not be suitable for younger viewers so if you offend easily or have younger viewers you might not want them to watch. Yes, I’m kidding, but I’m also kind of not kidding.
Okay here we go……….
Now wait just a minute. I know what you all are thinking, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Gentleman, does she look interested to you? I think not. Was the screeching a form of “whispering in her ear”? Doesn’t look like it worked to me, but I’m not an eagle.
I think this is a very cool photo. He’s not even touching her and I’m sorry ladies, but she definitely has that “I’ve got a headache” look. Notice that her head is up and her tail feathers are down below the limb.
Now I know everyone on the cams thought they saw thru the branches a mating, but sorry you didn’t. Stein got the message and landed on the other side of her. We certainly know who controls this relationship. She is so cool, she’s hardly moved an inch.
Stein however is not so cool, in fact he is ticked off and apparently and he’s not afraid to tell her.
It’s kind of like being in an elevator when people are speaking a foreign language; your curiosity overwhelms you and you’re dying to know what they are saying. I was really wishing at that point I could understand eagle.
Now I’m sure all you ladies reading this are having a good chuckle at Stein’s expense, but if Stein is anything he is persistent.
In the next 21 seconds I took 49 photos. I’ll show you seven, you’ll get the idea. Notice how her head is down now and her tail feathers are above the branch.
Okay, I’ve been having some fun at the E’s expense, so let’s change things up and get serious for a second. This next photo got me thinking about how amazing these birds are. When looking at this photo words like majestic, tender and loving don’t really do them justice. I truly feel very privileged to witness this and be able in my own little way document some of the moments in their lives.
Elsie takes a playful snap at Stein, as he returns to the limb.
Stein hops up to the highest fork of the limb, ruffles up his feathers and looks very proud. I swear if he smoked, he’d light up a cigarette.
On another subject; People always have a hard time telling the E's apart. Another way to tell them apart is their head. Elsie kind of has a flat top thing going on sometimes, whereas Stein has that slicked back streamlined look.
I also think all the discussions on how strong that dead limb is in should be answered now. If they decide to lay their eggs in the old nest (I hope not) I think the tree would survive one more year.
Puddin, FYI your island is surviving the winter just fine.
Time to leave the E’s alone, drop a few things at the house and head to the dam. I met up with jlr, Linda and her husband Ray. I was hoping they would be releasing water from the dam, but they stopped over the weekend.
The weather was so nice a few fishermen were on the river.
We saw several eagles, but they weren’t fishing, they were flying very high.
A perfect eagle perch, now we need an eagle.
I’m pretty sure this is an eagle nest. We’re not sure if current mating pair is using it, but we’re going to keep an eye on it.
Turkey vultures were everywhere. No red head?? Juvie?
Even far away there is no mistaking an adult bald eagles white tail when the sun shines thru it.
On the way home I stopped at the nest, Elsie was sitting on the new box Thumper built for her.
Take a close look at the nest and all the work Thumper has done; the new nest and supporting structure, 2 cams, IR lights, boxes for electrical components, microphones, all the cables and wires necessary to make it all work. He also has guide wires for the tree, ribbons for the juvies to play with and a complete weather station. If that isn’t enough I can only imagine the equipment and mass of wiring he has inside his home. Oh, I forgot the roof and deer cam complete with corn for the deer. Then you have the internet costs, I can only imagine what those are for the cams. I hope everyone realizes the tremendous work he puts into all of this so we all can enjoy the E’s. We can’t really do much to help with the physical work, but I hope all the people that read this go to the E’s home page and make a donation to the E’s so Thumper can keep all this going for everyone’s enjoyment. He didn’t ask me to post this and he may not even like it that I did, but it’s the one thing we all can do to help keep it going.
I think Elsie looks like she likes the new setup.
It’s been a long day and time to head home. It was very enjoyable to meet up with people that share the same passion for eagles that I have. Jlr and I sat for an hour and discussed what it takes to get good photos. The #1 thing for me is to be prepared; you never know when they will show up.
When I got home, I got out of the truck and opened the door with my arms full of stuff and I see across the room thru the sliding glass door Stein right in front of the deck. He’s beside the dock, 25’ off the water falling straight down. He’s going after a fish! I drop everything turn to grab the camera and I realize it’s still sitting in the front seat of the truck! The one thing I talked with jlr about is my huge failure of the day! I missed fishing again. I ran outside, around the truck and the passenger door is still locked @&$$#@#$, are you kidding me! I run back around the truck, crawled over the console, grabbed the camera and ran back into the house. I look out the window and no Stein??? I go out on the deck and I can’t see him. I was gone less than 45 seconds, he couldn’t have made it around the corner on his way to the nest. Where the heck is he? I look everywhere and no Stein. I finally leaned way over the deck and look up and guess who is playing hide and seek.
Not only is he persistent, he’s messing with me again. He obviously circled back around and landed behind a tree. He knew I was on the deck looking for him and he hid in the shadows behind the tree. I didn’t even realize he had a fish until he got ready to leave.
I really need to trim this limb.
I figured he would head to the nest with his snack. Maybe even bring it to Elsie as a gift. No, he turns and heads out to the main lake to enjoy his prize.
Jlr in the chat (protecting her real name in case the NSA is reading) has been seeing a lot of eagles below the dam. I have heard several times that the cold weather this winter is driving them down from Canada. I’m not 100% sure if that's right, but who cares, more eagles at the lake is a good thing. Jlr is even getting good photos of them fishing! This I need to see.
A really good series of photos, of an eagle grabbing a fish is something that has eluded me so far. I've seen it many times, but it happens so fast I just haven't got it on film. I mean memory card, but that doesn't sound right does it ?
I see that it's supposed to be sunny and 55 degrees on Sunday, so I get up early and head to the lake. The first thing most "lake people" do when they first see the lake is take note of the water level. This time of year it’s also ice that we are concerned about. The first time I see the lake is in the town of Gravois Mills. The Gravois Arm of the lake starts about a mile and a half from the nest and winds about 10 miles to the north. When I round the bend on the highway I see the water level has gone down and a thin sheet of ice has formed over the shallow water.
Now go back and look at that photo again. See it? An eagle is sitting on the ice.
She landed as I was crossing the bridge. I say she, because even way out on the ice I was struck by the size of it, she was huge. Maybe it’s Elsie? As the eagle fly's it’s about 10 - 15 miles from the nest so it could be, but I'm thinking no. Jlr lives about a mile or so from here and she regularly see a pair of eagles in the area. I'm betting it's one of those. About this time I see the mate flying behind me.
After watching them for a while I got back on the road. Instead of going to the house I turned off and decided to stop by the nest. A very good decision if I do say, both E’s were at the old nest.
It was a beautiful sunny day and they were soaking up the morning sun. I just sat in the truck for a little while and watched; I’m always worried about scaring them off. After several minutes I decided to get out and find that one spot that lets me get a clear shot thru all the trees. Lucky for me it was right over the hood of the truck, so I had a comfortable spot to watch from. I took a few photos, but just mostly watched them thru my camera.
A deer ran across the road and got Elsie’s attention. She really followed that deer until he went out of sight.
Stein wasn’t very interested in the deer and apparently he wasn’t too happy. He started screaming at Elsie.
He leans over and screams right in her ear. It was very reminiscent of Ozark’s screaming.
She wants no part of that and moves away from him.
He isn’t done screaming at her, so he moves down the branch towards her.
She moves away again and he follows right after her.
He follows her even further down the branch. Most of the time it’s very hard to tell what’s going on thru the camera, I just sensed that something was going to happen as I held down the shutter button on the camera. I was assuming they were going to mate, but there has been much speculation on the strength of that dead limb they sit on so I wanted to ready in case the branch broke off with their combined weight. Stein continues to pursue her down the branch. I didn’t know this at the time, but in looking at the photos, she doesn’t really seem too interested.
Elsie has moved so much, she has almost reached the proverbial fork in the road. She stops and Stein seems to be very happy with that!
Now at this point, I must issue the following warning.
My comments and photos might not be suitable for younger viewers so if you offend easily or have younger viewers you might not want them to watch. Yes, I’m kidding, but I’m also kind of not kidding.
Okay here we go……….
Now wait just a minute. I know what you all are thinking, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Gentleman, does she look interested to you? I think not. Was the screeching a form of “whispering in her ear”? Doesn’t look like it worked to me, but I’m not an eagle.
I think this is a very cool photo. He’s not even touching her and I’m sorry ladies, but she definitely has that “I’ve got a headache” look. Notice that her head is up and her tail feathers are down below the limb.
Now I know everyone on the cams thought they saw thru the branches a mating, but sorry you didn’t. Stein got the message and landed on the other side of her. We certainly know who controls this relationship. She is so cool, she’s hardly moved an inch.
Stein however is not so cool, in fact he is ticked off and apparently and he’s not afraid to tell her.
It’s kind of like being in an elevator when people are speaking a foreign language; your curiosity overwhelms you and you’re dying to know what they are saying. I was really wishing at that point I could understand eagle.
Now I’m sure all you ladies reading this are having a good chuckle at Stein’s expense, but if Stein is anything he is persistent.
In the next 21 seconds I took 49 photos. I’ll show you seven, you’ll get the idea. Notice how her head is down now and her tail feathers are above the branch.
Okay, I’ve been having some fun at the E’s expense, so let’s change things up and get serious for a second. This next photo got me thinking about how amazing these birds are. When looking at this photo words like majestic, tender and loving don’t really do them justice. I truly feel very privileged to witness this and be able in my own little way document some of the moments in their lives.
Elsie takes a playful snap at Stein, as he returns to the limb.
Stein hops up to the highest fork of the limb, ruffles up his feathers and looks very proud. I swear if he smoked, he’d light up a cigarette.
On another subject; People always have a hard time telling the E's apart. Another way to tell them apart is their head. Elsie kind of has a flat top thing going on sometimes, whereas Stein has that slicked back streamlined look.
I also think all the discussions on how strong that dead limb is in should be answered now. If they decide to lay their eggs in the old nest (I hope not) I think the tree would survive one more year.
Puddin, FYI your island is surviving the winter just fine.
Time to leave the E’s alone, drop a few things at the house and head to the dam. I met up with jlr, Linda and her husband Ray. I was hoping they would be releasing water from the dam, but they stopped over the weekend.
The weather was so nice a few fishermen were on the river.
We saw several eagles, but they weren’t fishing, they were flying very high.
A perfect eagle perch, now we need an eagle.
I’m pretty sure this is an eagle nest. We’re not sure if current mating pair is using it, but we’re going to keep an eye on it.
Turkey vultures were everywhere. No red head?? Juvie?
Even far away there is no mistaking an adult bald eagles white tail when the sun shines thru it.
On the way home I stopped at the nest, Elsie was sitting on the new box Thumper built for her.
Take a close look at the nest and all the work Thumper has done; the new nest and supporting structure, 2 cams, IR lights, boxes for electrical components, microphones, all the cables and wires necessary to make it all work. He also has guide wires for the tree, ribbons for the juvies to play with and a complete weather station. If that isn’t enough I can only imagine the equipment and mass of wiring he has inside his home. Oh, I forgot the roof and deer cam complete with corn for the deer. Then you have the internet costs, I can only imagine what those are for the cams. I hope everyone realizes the tremendous work he puts into all of this so we all can enjoy the E’s. We can’t really do much to help with the physical work, but I hope all the people that read this go to the E’s home page and make a donation to the E’s so Thumper can keep all this going for everyone’s enjoyment. He didn’t ask me to post this and he may not even like it that I did, but it’s the one thing we all can do to help keep it going.
I think Elsie looks like she likes the new setup.
It’s been a long day and time to head home. It was very enjoyable to meet up with people that share the same passion for eagles that I have. Jlr and I sat for an hour and discussed what it takes to get good photos. The #1 thing for me is to be prepared; you never know when they will show up.
When I got home, I got out of the truck and opened the door with my arms full of stuff and I see across the room thru the sliding glass door Stein right in front of the deck. He’s beside the dock, 25’ off the water falling straight down. He’s going after a fish! I drop everything turn to grab the camera and I realize it’s still sitting in the front seat of the truck! The one thing I talked with jlr about is my huge failure of the day! I missed fishing again. I ran outside, around the truck and the passenger door is still locked @&$$#@#$, are you kidding me! I run back around the truck, crawled over the console, grabbed the camera and ran back into the house. I look out the window and no Stein??? I go out on the deck and I can’t see him. I was gone less than 45 seconds, he couldn’t have made it around the corner on his way to the nest. Where the heck is he? I look everywhere and no Stein. I finally leaned way over the deck and look up and guess who is playing hide and seek.
Not only is he persistent, he’s messing with me again. He obviously circled back around and landed behind a tree. He knew I was on the deck looking for him and he hid in the shadows behind the tree. I didn’t even realize he had a fish until he got ready to leave.
I really need to trim this limb.
I figured he would head to the nest with his snack. Maybe even bring it to Elsie as a gift. No, he turns and heads out to the main lake to enjoy his prize.