Out on the Lake

[Trojansoc]

Saturday in Arkansas couldn't have been more beautiful.....sunny & near 60...so nice that I was able to convince my wife it would be a perfect day to head out fpr Lake Degray in SW Arkansas to one of the first eagle-spotting expeditions of the year.



Note that I've gotten her to shooting, and she has laid claim to my Fuji s6000fd. The birds summer in northern Minnesota, but follow the migrations of American coots to the Arkansas lake because they are such a plentiful food supply. What was a wonderful day on a party barge, however, wasn't the best for eagle spotting because the birds tend to stay on the move, soaring extremely high on the warm air currents. Thus, shots of bald eagles tend to be rare, and at extreme distances.



This immature bald eagle gave us our best shooting opportunity.



Although eagles were scarce (it's also still very early in the season for them), there were other opportunities to shoot. Perhaps the most interesting of the day was watching the commotion when we neared a flock of coots. These guys don't gracefully rise off the water like a flock of ducks. They run across the surface, splashing water everywhere till they builld up enough momentum for flight. The result is chaos.



And, there was this rather unusual, formerly domestic, gentleman who has taken up with the local mallards who live around the wave break at the entrance to the cove that houses the marina.



and the heron who graced us with a close fly-by

[mtngal]

Looks like a fine time. Coots aren't very graceful when they swim, either - I love watching them nod their way across a pond. My favorite is the flying heron - I like the angle.

[NonEntity1]

That first eagle shot is pretty good, especially since it looks like a 100% crop or close to it. Congratulations on getting your wife to share your hobby, I am working on mine too!

Tim

[Trojansoc]

NonEntity1 wrote:

That first eagle shot is pretty good, especially since it looks like a 100% crop or close to it. Congratulations on getting your wife to share your hobby, I am working on mine too!

Thanks for the kind comments Harriet and Tim. Tim, you are correct in your assumption of a 100% crop on the first eagle shot. The other eagle shot is very close to 100% also. Neither is as good as I would like, but I will definitely be going back for another shot soon.

The heron shot is one of the few times I've been able to shoot down on a heron in flight. It gave a very different perspective from some of my earlier BIF shots of these guys.

Paul