Golden Eagle

As we were "rocking down the highway" nearly to Kemmerer, Wyoming, we spotted a Golden Eagle sitting on a fence post just off the road. Normally, just the act of slowing the vehicle is enough to send them flying, but we did everything right in this instance.

First of all, I did not react quickly, but traveled on a fair piece before coming to a stop and slowly turning around. So far so good. I then slowly drove back toward the eagle and it let us get directly across from him without reacting.

I had my camera ready and began immediately firing off a series of rapid-fire images. He just sat there posing.



Then he turned his head slightly to look at us. . .

Squatted down. . .

And launched!

He didn't fly very far, but landed on a snow fence about a hundred yards back up the road. We decided that lightning could strike in the same place twice, so I drove very slowly with my camera at the ready until we got along side once more. Just as I stopped and raised the camera, he took off and this time it seemed he was in earnest.

I got out of the truck and made a few images as he grew smaller and smaller. I had given up and was climbing back into the truck when I noticed he had turned around and was headed right toward us.  The following sequence was as he passed by!

Golden Eagle, Lincoln County, Wyoming, USA, May 14, 2017, Nikon D90, AF-S Nikkor 70-300, f/4.5-5.6 at 300mm, Manual Exposure Mode, f/8 for 1/1600 of a second, ISO 200, processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC. (All images.)