Pat and I were truly astounded by the quantity and variety of birds we saw at Barr Lake State Park last week. After all, it's early March with plenty of winter still to come. We were really just there in hopes of seeing an eagle; the rest of the birds were just gravy. And honestly, we thought if we were lucky enough to catch just a fleeting glimpse of a single bald eagle, our minds would be blown. Imagine our amazement when we saw at least a couple dozen of them! We were in awe. It was incredible!
Unfortunately, though I'm a professional photographer, I don't have the kind of lens that would be suitable for photographing eagles cavorting half a mile away. I do have an old, crappy 300 mm lens that's so ancient, it doesn't even have auto focus, so I have to focus it manually. I possess some very nice lenses but this is not one of them. So predictably the photos I took with the 300 mm aren't terribly sharp. (I'm thinking about buying a 600 mm lens if this bird watching hobby sticks. We'll see. That'd be an expensive purchase for sure, for an exotic lens that wouldn't see a lot of use.) To make things worse, after walking for what felt like ages around this gigantic lake and finally making it to the spot where the eagles are in view, the wind suddenly went from somewhat crazy to straight up ferocious, so much so that I actually couldn't hold my camera steady enough to avoid blur, even at high shutter speeds. It was nuts. Oh and freezing.
Never mind all that! We did have some awesome binoculars with us so we were able to observe the eagles flying around and doing eagle things, and it was something I'll never forget. If you're ever in this part of the world during the winter, I highly recommend you visit this park and see bald eagles in their natural habitat.
Look all the way across to those trees in the distance. The blobs that you see in the branches are the eagles' nests! Apparently they can be several feet across and weigh as much as a ton. Astounding! The dots on the ice and in the sky are all eagles. Again, craptastic old lens/long distance/extremely high wind/very cropped photo here, so it's not terribly sharp.
No birds here, just a pretty, serene lake view.
1 comment:
I have the equivalent of a 480mm lens when I shoot with my old Canon 77D. It works, but it would be nice with a real bird lens. But then again I prefer photographing in the city! Looks like you had a fun time out birding though.
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