Eagles Eagles Eagles!

I have learned something about myself. I lived in Florida for 26 years thinking "paradise". Then a trip to Bora Bora and Tahiti changed all of that. I came back and Florida was no longer my dream place. Moving back to the frozen north and those first few winters, I thought I had lost my mind. What can you do in the winter in -20 below zero weather with snow everywhere you look? Someone mentioned I should travel to Red Wing, MN USA one winter. Red Wing, home of the famous Red Wing pottery was a romantic little river town. But little did I know that 100's of eagles wintered there along the Mississippi.

After that first trip, there isn't a weekend that I'm not in my car at 4-5am headed that direction if I'm not traveling. Camera gear charged, donning winter gear, I am eagle bound! I hike, I travel solo, I don't like any situation with crowds and prefer to find my own haven. I find crowds of people surrounding wildlife offensive and brutal on nature. I steer clear as much as possible. I sit in the mud, the snow, the slush, on frozen ground, anywhere I can stabilize my 500 lens to get "the" shot. I live and breathe for flight work. It's never enough, it's never enough.

Once you move from stationery wildlife work to flight work, your photography becomes something different, something mystical. You push yourself for faster lenses, faster gear, faster cards and that "locked on" moment when you have that once-almost extinct magical raptor in your viewfinder.

I am stunned to find myself at 65 absolutely thrilled to see falling snow, raptors flying and below zero weather with that magical dance of fog on the river. And if you listen, you can hear the amazing piercing call of the Eagles as they hunt, soar and own the sky.

Nikon D500, Nikon 200-500, Nikon 300 F4, Nikon 1.4 Converter and Nikon 2X Converter. Joy.