emace's photostream  

This pass was easily within 20 feet of me. Short of hanging out in Alaska, there might not be a better place to eagle watch than along the Mississippi. The problem in some places is getting close enough to capture any definition of the birds. At LD14, the problem is often that they get so close that you clip off their wingtips.

I always love it when I can catch these birds with their wings at the bottom of the down-stroke. It just conveys power to me.

From the Havana Nature Center a couple of weeks ago.

This is the closest I've been to a harrier all winter and, of course, the damn bird stayed between me and the early morning sun. To my eye, this is a pretty cool image even if it's worthless for ID purposes but I can't help but wish that the light would've been behind me instead of it.

Okay, I hate winter in the Midwest. Always have - always will. But, the one thing that winter affords me is an embarrassment of riches of awesome light when the sun does come out. The challenge is always to be in the right place when that happens so that when the critters show up you can take advantage of the conditions. This morning, I chose to check out this spot for harriers and what I found was this being bathed in that perfect light. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but this makes it almost worth it to have to deal with our winters.