Bald eagles living the good life in North Jersey

NorthJersey.com ^ | 03.05.06 | RICHARD COWEN

[thackney]

Clear days mean cold days during winter. It was 8°F a little after 10 am. The camera quit focusing so I only kept a few. Most of them were too far away this morning.

[RushLake]

What kind of a camera are you using? Tripod? Telephoto? The pictures are breath taking.

A friend of mine who is a pilot told me the best days to fly airplanes are cold clear days. I surmise the eagle would have much the same opinion, but I'm neither a pilot or an eagle.

[thackney]

A Kodak DX7590, 5 mega pixels. Nothing fancy. We bought it last year because it has a 10x optical zoom. The pictures I post here are cropped a little and greatly reduced in size. The reasons the pictures turn out so well, most of them I am less than 100 feet from the eagle.

I don't use a tripod or spend time with all the adjustments on the camera. Just point, try to quit shaking from the cold then click.

[Horatio Gates]

Those pics are neat. Your eagles look strangely similar to this fella 8>). This was in Bozeman, MT. I'm not much of a photographer unfortunately but was lucky to get close.

[Pharmboy]

Most excellent, friend.

I love the look on their faces...like "just try and ef with me." LOL!

A perfect symbol for our incredible country, dontcha think?

[HairOfTheDog]

Fabulous! Thanks for sharing them with us :~D

We have a couple near our beach house, only our camera is not nearly as high power as yours, and we took these on a much greyer day. These are sitting on our dock railing.

[thackney]

My first set was a little greyer day. I did some minor color adjustments on them. This morning set was only cropped and re-sized.

We had to get a better zoom living up here. Trips through Denali National Forest and just driving around give lots of opportunity for wildlife photos. But that camera was only $450.

[HairOfTheDog]

My digital now is still only a 3.2 megapixel, and it really loses quality when we zoom, it's not good for that at all. My encounter with a black bear last year all I got was a little blurry black smudge. 'course my horse was dancing around too while I was trying to focus...

[thackney]

That is basically what we were using before, with a 3X. That one is an olympus and is still better for low light. We found for outdoor wildlife, the 10X makes the real difference.

After all, just how close do want to be to these guys?

[HairOfTheDog]

Very very cool :~D

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"I thought the shells of eagle eggs thinned because of a low calcium diet."

As a Chicken Farmer I always dry and crush the eggshells of the eggs I use in our household and feed them right back to the hens in their mash. Can't get any fresher calcium than that. I also add crushed shells to the bird feeder mix in the spring so the Mama Birds get a little calcium boost when they start laying in earnest in the Spring. :)

As for the Eagles, I'm TOTALLY amazed that New Jersey has such a large population of them. Way to go! We'll be "Eagle Watching" on the Wisconsin River in the upcoming weeks. I just love the dorky looking Eaglettes. :)

[Coleus]

for your punishment, you will have to go to bed early tonight.

[Marine_Uncle]

" Great Pictures and story..."
Having for a number of years resided some 20 minutes south of the appalachian mountain range north of Allentown PA area, and spending many days on the trails along a thirty mile plus strech I have seen a few bold eaqles, and lots of huge red tail hawks primarily. A famouse peak appropriate called Hawk Mountian, a spar peak off the main chain is famouse spot for watching migrating raptors during Oct/Nov time frame. So I have been one of the lucky ones to see these magnificant birds soaring in the blue skies on occasions.

[RushLake]

Wow! Again, nice work. Gives me hope with my DX7630.