Golden Eagles in Winter

Winter is tough time for bird photography when you live in a cold climate. Like a lot of places in the Northern hemisphere, Sweden is covered with snow and the migrant birds are all enjoying a well deserved rest in Southern Europe or Africa. Bird photographers on the other hand spend their winters chasing the birds in the South or sorting through the tens of thousands of pictures they took during the year, hoping to find a jewel they hadn't noticed earlier, or more likely deleting pictures that just didn't make the cut.
But there are a few special opportunities during the winter that you won't get during the rest of the year; golden eagles will accept a meal that they would snub their noses at the rest of the year.
200km North of Trondheim Norway, Ole Martin Dahle one of the pioneers in Scandinavian hide photography has created an environment that allows viewing and photographing the eagles in their natural habitat, but there are no guarantees. Getting to the hides means entering about an hour before the first light, to avoid being seen by the eagles. And once inside the lights are extinguished, conversations are held at a whisper, and camera lenses stuck through the wall of the hide are not to be removed until leaving the hide. Thankfully a Primus heater keeps the temperature closer to 0C than the -15C outside, but after 10 hours of sitting still, it can still feel pretty chilly. Five days in a hide can yield from 0 to 5,000 images, and the lower the number, the colder it feels and the slower time passes.
As luck would have it the eagles were being cooperative this year and Johan (17) and I got about 2,000 photographs each. Most taken with either the Canon 1DmkIV + 500/4IS or the Canon 7D + 300/2.8IS

Taken during an earlier visit (2007) to the the same hide

And if Scandinavia is too far away, there are also some great opportunities in Alaska during the winter. For more of my eagle images see:

http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/norway_photos

2009 - On a Wing and a Prayer...

A few of my favorite shots from 2009...

A week in Homer Alaska with my son Johan in February gave us many fantastic photo opps...

Back in Sweden the fun continued with a Northern hawk owl that took up winter residence not far from our home.

April - Goldeneyes are a sign that spring is on its way

In June Johan and I made a long awaited trip to Iceland. See the separate post for more. We both agreed it was the most fantastic place we had ever been!

December took us on our first visit to Africa during a week in Gambia. A few more images from that trip

Have a great year!

http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher

Eagle Aerobatics in Norway Day 2

June 6

Day one of our eagle photography in Lauvsnes, Norway was beyond our wildest expectations with 24 close displays by the eagles. Even Ole-Martin our guide was impressed since that tied his earlier record. Day two proved to be a more normal day with about 10 fly-bys. But since we already had hundreds of great images this gave us a little more time to catch our breath and and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Norway has a reputation for it's stunning landscapes and fjords, and we were not disappointed.

So after another incredibly successful day there was only one cloud on the horizon, and that was the weather forecast which called for strong winds the next day. Being somewhat prone to sea-sickness Johan and I took this as an invitation to photograph something on land the next day, and we decided to make a short 8 hour drive to the Island of Runde for a couple of days before heading home to Sweden.

Eagle Aerobatics in Norway - Day 1

June 5

Our Norwegian sea-eagle adventure began when Swedish bird photographer/bird watcher C.G. Gustavsson contacted me out of the blue back in November and asked if I would be interested in sharing the costs for a session with Norway's most famous eagle guide Ole Martin Dahle. It took us about 3 seconds to make up our minds. So after seven long months of waiting Johan (12) and I touched down with SAS in Trondheim picked up our rental car and began the three hour drive north. This was somewhat of a budget arrangement, outside of the normal guiding season and schedule which meant we had budget accommodations as well. Ole-Martin made arrangements with a neighbor who had a rental flat that we could rent; a one bedroom flat with a kitchen, which was just fine with us.

So after getting settled in we made an early night of it and then were up at 6AM to meet Ole-Martin and head for his boat and to meet his good friends the sea-eagles.
Johan and I used the Canon 500/4IS and the 400/5.6, both work well from a distance, but for some of the closer shots a 300/2.8 would have been a better choice with the potential for shallower depth of field and wider field of view.

As you can see there were plenty of eagles, and they seemed to recognize Ole-Martin and his boat. But we also tossed bread to the seagulls on the way out to the eagles territory. The eagles are smart enough to understand that where there is a flock of seagulls there must be food. So from their vantage points several kilometers away they came to see what all the commotion was about.
This was Johan's first effort at serious in-flight photography, but he did brilliantly. You just can't deny that kids have much quicker reflexes than adults, I guess in part from all the computer games.
Later that evening Ole-Martin showed us some of the images made by previous visitors, among them a teenager whose image of a red  squirrel placed in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. This became an inspiration for Johan who consequently placed twice in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, first in 2008 and again in 2010 (see separate post).