Maryland Bald Eagle (s)

Bald Eagle @ Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, MD
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

Bald Eagle @ Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, MD


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I've been on the hunt for Bald Eagles now for about a year. I like in Maryland, not too far from Washington D.C. I know about a handful of locations where there eagles, practically in every direction! Great Falls to the west, Mason Neck to the south, Centennial Lake and Conowingo Dam to the north, and Blackwater and the rest of the eastern shore to the east...

Here are a bunch of shots from 2006-2007, roughly my first year trying to photograph bald eagles, these are almost all from Maryland (MD):
























-Jon

(Photographing Bald Eagles in Maryland. Nature, wildlife, birds, nikon, bird of prey, nikographer)

CafePress store "Grand Opening!"

Blue Bird @ Blackwater NWR, MD
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

Blue Bird @ Blackwater NWR, MD

I setup an account on Cafepress.com and opened a few of the free shops. The free ones are pretty limited. There are a variety of product templates (like a mousepad, or journal, or mini-poster) but you can only have a single product of each type per free shop.

This limit means to have two mousepads (ie two different images on a mousepad) you need to open two free shops! I've opened 3 free shops so far, and you can view all the products together at this url: http://www.cafepress.com/nikographer,nikographer2,Nikographer3.

If I get anything sold I will most likely upgrade to a pro-shop where the single product limit is removed.

I've set the markups pretty low (a couple bucks) on all the stuff except the small and large posters, which are marked up about 60-100% of the cost of the poster to me...

I hope this takes off, but in the world of millions of photographers, I wonder if there's much demand. We'll see.

-Jon

Osprey Pair, Washington Monument, Airplane taking off - (from) South of Reagan National Airport (DCA)

Osprey Pair, Washington Monument, Airplane taking off - (from) South of Reagan National Airport (DCA)
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

So, I've been hitting some of my old spots lately. It can be frustrating because I haven't been interested in this stuff for long, just over a year, and a bunch of trips have been pretty fruitless. Spots that weren't working much when I've been over the past couple of months include:
Great Falls MD
Centennial Lake MD
Rocky Gorge MD (Scott's Cove)
Brighton Dam MD
Greenbelt Lake MD...

Lucky for me though, today I hit Mason Neck State Park in Virgina, Great Marsh VA, Gunstan Hall (George Mason's Plantation) (it was sort of a let down for the 7$), then the Washington Boat Club / Indigo Landing and here I found the Osprey had returned. I saw two active nests and possibly 5 Osprey so there's probably another nest I didn't see.



Here's a very similar shot from last year that includes some young from this same nest.

Some new and some old

Cute 2.0
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

The Tai Shan photo is from January 2007. He was up close to the big glass window, and was eating his bamboo.

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This Black-Crowned Night Heron is from last summer. I'm looking forward to them returning anyday now at the National Zoo in Washington D.C.


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Here are some newer photos.

Caracal Lynx


Cheetah:


Samantha - Bald Eagle


Luke the Lion:


Tiger Cub!


Luke Moving:


Red-legged Seriema:


-Jon

Golden-Headed Lion Tamarin / Flickr Explorer Pix

Golden-Headed Lion Tamarin
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

Here's a collection of photos that hit explorer recently...













-Jon

Soy (+video w/ cubs)

Soy (+video w/ cubs)
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

I put together a video with some assorted clips of the cubs and Soy with the cubs...



Here are some other photos of them all...

Some Cubs Chasing Soy Action:










-Jon

Bald Eagles Cartwheeling at Blackwater National Wlidlife Refuge 2/10/2007

Happy Valentine's Day (w/ animation) :D
Originally uploaded by Nikographer [Jon].

Eagles cartwheeling animation:

The full dance.


Some comments I made on the flickr photo
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@ drewbilizer! I know, I know! (I wish they were sharper/more in focus)

These were all shot hand-held, through my car's sunroof, and I was goofy just trying to get them in view of the camera...

Next time I will have higher ISO, and be more ready. If that's possible...

These shots came out much better:


The thing I learned regarding photographing this behavior: Panning doesn't work when the subject is SPINNING!!!

Thanks so much everyone. It was awesome to see, and I'm glad to share it.

@planephotoman - I was shooting with a 400mm lens, and if you shot birds of this size with a 400 you know that at a certain distance it's not worth taking the pix, or more than a couple. These two were a bit closer then that when they started their cartwheeling. Maybe they were 300 feet up? 400? And when they let go I'd say they were 100 feet above the ground, and a 150 feet away from my spot on the ground.

I got to see, probably this pair exclusively, lock up 4 times! Once I thought that a bird landed in the marsh after letting go. I actually thought both might have hit the ground, but when only one flew up from the ground, I scratched my head, and I was sort of lost in the moment for that sequence, and didn't get much in the way of photos.

I've only ever seen this cartwheeling behavior about 4 other times all at Conowingo Dam. The one sort of ok shot of it from then and there is this one:



Like I said on my first photo posted from this Saturday, I set my alarm clock for 4am, and woke up at 3:30am. I was that psyched to go, and it was so worth it. Just excellent.