We drove down to Marion Reservoir this afternoon and hit the bald eagle jackpot! We saw at least 3 different males and perhaps more, plus one likely female. I love the fact that the bald eagle is making a comeback in this area; we even saw one sitting on the ice earlier this week when we drove over Kanopolis Dam.
Wildlife populations as a whole have increased dramatically since I was a child. One never saw wild turkeys or bald eagles back then, and I recall with clarity the one time I saw a deer down by the river in Lindsborg one morning while I was delivering newspapers.
Now, there’s a large flock of turkeys that live south of Smolan, often visible from Burma Road, and while driving around Kanopolis earlier this week we saw 4 dozen(!) deer between Venango and Horsethief Canyon. Well, that was a large number, we often see a 1/2 dozen or so deer in that area.
I try to take photos of bald eagles every chance I get, but given that they are usually pretty far from where I’m located it’s a challenge. I did OK this time, but had to severely crop the images in order to see any detail in the birds. I included a couple of the uncropped images for reference.
Equipment used was a Canon 40D with a Canon 100-400 lens with a 1.4x extender (effective focal length of 560mm and that’s before the 1.6 sensor crop), all mounted on my Bogen tripod with a Really Right Stuff head. Focus is difficult at these high zoom levels, plus it was bit windy. Still, these are the best I’ve ever taken, so I’ll keep trying.
