6 January 2013

Eagles in the gloom...................



After a week of really heavy snow I finally made it up to Yakumo yesterday......................but couldn't take any decent photos despite spending several hours there and there being plenty of eagles around.. I went with 2 friends today for a very short visit in the morning  in absolutely awful snow storms but we got lucky....................I finally got some eagles standing in the river shots.


These were taken in a small parking area next to the river, luckily the tiny 'car park' (really just a place for engineers to park their trucks as its is next to a small mobile phone tower) had been cleared of snow.

I often see eagles here (in fact lots of my eagle shots are from this exact same spot) and they feed in the water but always fly off as soon as they see the car.

But today they didn't...................




As you can see it was snowing but for about 5 minutes the raging  blizzards stopped.................it was still pretty dark though and focusing through the falling snow was really tough.




There do seem to be a lot of eagles of both species this winter.....................



At first there were only White Tailed Eagles in the water but then a Stellers joined them.................




It plucked a salmon carcass from the river and devoured it very quickly..................




I have read somewhere that Stellers are much faster eaters then White Taileds................




This individual certainly wasted no time...................






The weather was too bad for BIFs, this was the only one of the day...............


So despite the lousy lousy weather we got lucky today.................I wonder how long I'll have to wait for another day like this one? I have been to this spot 30 or 40 times in midwinter over the last 6 or 7 years, today wasn't especially different from all the other times................

Other stuff around this week included White Tailed Eagles in Kamiiso, the usual common winter wildfowl everywhere, Common Buzzard in town, Bullfinch at Yakumo, Daurian Jackdaw and Rook in Ono, the huge flock of Hawfinch is still at Onuma as was Black Crowned Night Heron, Black Necked Grebe at Moheji....................
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6 comments:

  1. Hi Stewart!
    Hope you had a nice Christmas and Happy New Year.

    Despite the gloomy weather, these are the most interesting bird shots I've seen in a while.Great stuff!!

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  2. Brilliant shots in the circumstances Stu. Those Steller's have the most frightening sized bill. I guess they must eat bigger things than Salmon with that huge thing?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Phil. I think they eat anything they can get their beaks on........

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  3. I'd absolutely love to photograph these magnificent creatures. Great work mate.

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  4. Great pictures, Stu. As with Phil, I was thinking the Steller's have mighty mouths to down their fish. You're lucky to have so many eagles around and it's good to hear the numbers are healthy. I went looking for White-tails on Saturday but only found someone firing a rifle about the place a couple plucking pine cones from the trees. They had a huge bag they could barely carry. All in a protected place. I don't think I took a single bird photo.

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