Bald Eagles of Calgary

One bird that I’ve been seeing on a somewhat regular basis around Calgary this winter has been the majestic Bald Eagle, and what a magnificent sight they are whether they are soaring, hunting, or simply perched surveying their domain.

Growing up in Australia I only ever remember hearing how endangered this eagle was, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find these birds in decent numbers right in the middle of a city the size of Calgary.

Since I got back into birding about a year ago, I seem to have come across mainly juveniles and sub-adults, so I’m still hoping to catch an adult in-flight, but whatever the age or plumage of these birds I still very much get a thrill each & every time I see one. Indeed I can still vividly remember the juvenile eagle (in the shot above & below) flying directly toward & over me – something that certainly doesn’t happen to me everyday!

Yep, as a photographer it’s tough to beat an eagle flying toward you as was the case with this sequence below when this particular fellow decided to take a break from hunting mallards in a field and decided to perch. I happened to be in the right place at the right time as he wheeled around, then hit the brakes to land right near me…

I’d love to be able to say that the shot above was a split second before he grasped his prey, but alas no! Here are some portraits of this guy as he checked us out…

And, finally, a full adult at rest. Even perched they look impressive!

Technical note: all of these shots were taken with a Canon 7D with the new Canon 600mm f4L ISII lens, hand-held. That’s right, you can hand-hold this beast of a lens (I’m average build & strength for a guy), at least for short periods of 10-15 seconds which I find is plenty in the world of flight photography. I generally shoot at f7.1 and will go up to ISO800 to get a fast enough shutter speed (1/1000th of a second or more) to freeze the motion of the wings. Cheers, Tim.