I’ve been MIA while preparing for & now entertaining guests! Love to show my family some favorite haunts like Conboy Lake National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw Sandhill Cranes, Golden-mantled Squirrels, elk, raptors & more! This banded sandhill crane was so close, he barely fit in my frame. I love their red heads, shaped like a heart and their gorgeous feathers.
Banded Sandhill Crane at Conboy Lake National Wildlife Refuge
Lately I’m seeing Golden Eagles more frequently than usual and a friend mentioned one soaring over her Mosier home the same day I caught this one further east, on the WA side.
Golden Eagle soaring over a field with snow not completely melted off yet.
I love conducting winter raptor surveys for East Cascades Audubon. I traverse two specific routes, counting & hopefully photographing each raptor that I encounter. Some days I have wonderful luck and other days not so much. This day in February was a good one! Many of the raptors you see on my website were found during surveys.
Bald Eagle taking off in flight. Shot at 500mm, cropped for detail.
Sometimes I can’t get the photo because they’re too far away; or in this instance, too close for my lens.
A Golden Eagle flying too close for my 500mm lens to capture, but look at that wing pattern!
I took a day for myself, free of responsibility. No surveys, no reports, no class, no photo editing, no site additions, no ‘to-do’s of any sort. Because the wind was blowing, there wasn’t too much to photograph, but I did spend quality time with this gorgeous subadult Bald Eagle in the Columbia River Gorge.
Subadult Bald Eagle at the top of a small fir tree with wind blowing his feathers about.