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[Images from the Id] – Timing or In Search of the Eagle Part 2

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Images from the Id – Timing or In Search of the Eagle Part 2

Eagle 2-001

Now for the truth and the frustration.

Lesson – Bald Eagles are iconic. People have this preconceived idea as how they look. The Eagle does not reach its full “baldness” until its 4th year. This means a lot of eagles don’t look like what people thing they should look like. I wish someone would buy a picture of an immature baldy.

Lesson – Eagles mate for life and in many places don’t tend to nest where they winter, my lake =-(  They usually use the same nest each year and just re-build or add on to it. Photos of nesting eagles are near the top of the list for photos. Study the locals. Get on the “Birders” email list.

Lesson – Birders have different goals than photographers. Don’t be disappointed if you chase one of their leads and the bird is a small dot at 200 yards and sure it’s an eagle but… Last week, I spotted a Peregrine Falcon attacking a flock of crows way up there in the sky. I got a photo but just enough to identify it accurately. Someday…

Lesson – Feeding shots are the best, yellow talons outreaching out with the great fierce look, wings back and no nictitating membrane over the eye.

Lesson – Bald Eagles are equal opportunity feeder. They prefer fish but will eat some small mammals or even dead animals (Was Ben Franklin right in preferring the Turkey for our symbol?) Give the lambs and little children to the Golden Eagle not the Bald Eagle. Like many animals it is very important to expend the least amount of energy for a given amount of prey. It’s not laziness it’s just whether the energy used is less than energy eaten. Because of this they eat carrion, or more spectacularly, steal fish.

Lesson – Learn about your “prey” try to anticipate what it is going to do. Don’t waste your energy.

The Case Story – I and picked up one of my 80mm-400mm lens from the repair shop and they said there was nothing wrong with it, so I went to the lake to “test” it. Arriving I immediately went to the trees where the big guys usually hangout in. Nobody home. Went down to the dam tower, usually a good second choice. Nobody home. So it was down to the lake shore. There it was, soaring high above the lake, a beautiful mature Bald Eagle. I am 3 minutes from the parking lot. While driving and looking, not too hard in this park – no other cars that day, the Eagle starts showing some definite interest in the surface of the water, At 2 minutes from parking, it was obvious it was happening. Tuning the corner in to the boat launch/parking area, the Eagle begins its attack, 10 seconds. My brain is yelling, “Miss, miss, miss” Hoping it would re-attack; small chance of that. Then, ten feet from shore and where I would be in five seconds, I see a large carp get plucked by yellow talons and carried away to the distant trees. I don’t believe in luck but it’s hard to keep saying that I just need to get their more often. Another bird, another day.

This week’s Photo

“Mature Bald Eagle” Viera Wetlands Florida. Again as last week 9 am early, low light,  ISO 800; 1/6000 shutter speed; f 6.7; 0 EV; 400/600 mm, Aperture priority; spot metered. Cropped for composition; processed and sharpened in Lightroom 5.3. The only time I have been eye level with the eagle. Right time in right place? Well, almost. Right after my camera’s buffer filled, the eagle shot straight up in to the air attacking an Osprey carrying a fish. Very spectacular no body got the fish and this time I was 10 seconds early 😉

[Dessert Droppings] Let the Cowchips Fall Where They May

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Blog laws require me to produce a 2013 retrospective and behold, the ABQ Journal arrived with its 2013 Cowchip Awards. Annual Cowchip Awards are a Journal tradition which highlights sick, twisted, tasteless NM happenings from the past year. So before we anxiously move on to brave the potential  pitfalls and downfalls of 2014, I herein present (with personal commentary) choice chunks from the 2013 Cowchip Awards. From the stomach-churning to the heart-warming, meet a selection of award winners.

Uber foodie, Anthony Bourdain, did a “Parts Unknown” segment on NM and falsely accused a classic Santa Fe restaurant of making its signature Frito pie out of “canned Hormel chili” and a “DayGlo orange cheese-like substance.”
This is the same Anthony Bourdain who can smack his lips over flame-roasted scorpion-on-a-stick in some dank jungle outpost that never heard of hand sanitizer and never once accuse the native street vendors of using canned scorpion.
I actually watched that particular Bourdain episode thinking some of my favorite eateries would be featured. I was feeling all flattered that NM cuisine was about to be showcased on national TV. But, no. Bourdain ignored the owl-shaped Owl Cafe’s legendary chili cheese burger; never went near the luscious pies and cakes at The Flying Star; and turned his gourmet gullet away from the green chili chicken stew at The Range.  Instead, a substantial part of the show was devoted to Bourdain squatting in a remote patch of desert, fawning over a group of cowpoke wannabes  who were  preparing a pot of lumpy buffalo goulash over a campfire.  A campfire! NM is withering in the throes of a multi-year drought!  What shmuck would build a campfire amidst the instantly flammable desert shrubs and grasses?
Bottom of the food chain to  you, Anthony Bourdain!

Another winning event:
A public meeting to discuss the mind-numbing topic of ABQ traffic roundabouts turned all pissy and patriotic, when an audience member shouted down the use of the “unAmerican” word “queue” to describe traffic flow.  To reach the meeting, our irate defender of the mother tongue, despiser of a “foreign” word with fewer q’s and u’s than ABQ, had to drive down Lagrima De Oro Road, over Paseo Del Norte Blvd, and west on Avenida Caesar Chavez.

A number of Cowchip Awards went to animals for their loco escapades:
I’ll skip the part about the cow that cut short a bus trip for the Gallup High School track team and get right to the eagle. The noble Dessert Droppings- 010714-eaglebird, lovingly rescued and rehabbed by an ABQ nature center, headed swiftly for the Mexican border on being released, without so much as a “Gracias!” Sure!  Exploit our welfare system and run, will you!  You birds are all the same!

And finally, a Cowchip Award for this hare-raising tale:
An award-winning rabbit was kidnapped from the Southern NM State Fair.  The blue ribbon bunny was found stuffed in a pillowcase on the NM State University campus and returned to his grateful 8- year old owner.
Prints and DNA on the pillowcase led to the arrest of the wascally wabbit-snatcher.  Ha! Ha! JK!  Ever hear of CSI New Mexico?  Neither did I!

Farewell 2013!  Don’t step in the cowchips on your way out!