Chilkat River, Alaska
Monday, November 16, 2009

    This was our first day photographing the bald eagles. We met for breakfast at the Bamboo Room restaurant at 6:30 am. After loading all our equipment into the two Ford Expedition vans, including stuff for snacks, we set out for a location along the Chilkat River about 20 miles from Haines. It was about 30 F, but not snowing in the morning. In fact, the ground showed less and less snow as we moved away from town. Driving long the river, we began to see eagles roosting in the trees – just a few isolated eagles at first, and then pairs and triples.

    We chose a turnout along the river that is often a popular place for eagles, and today was no exception. When scanning the trees and riverbanks, you could see as many as 40 or 50 eagles at any given time. This time of the year, the eagles are busy feeding on the salmon that have finished spawning and are now dying. The eagles, being basically lazy, find it a lot easier to snag a dying salmon that is floating by in the current than trying to capture a live one. Even easier is to pick a fight with another eagle already feeding on a salmon and try to take it away.

    We each found a spot to set up our tripod and stash our gear, and then the waiting for something interesting to happen begins. If nothing else, wildlife photography requires patience. I layered up well this morning and even had to shed my parka and switch to a lighter fleece to keep from overheating. The new boots are working great. The “thinsultation” along with expedition socks are keeping my feet warm, and the supple kangaroo hide leather is soft and comfortable. It is a good thing, too, because the 12” high hunting boots are the only shoes I have on this trip. It was either bring other shoes or more camera equipment. Camera equipment won.

    Snow began to fall continuously again about noon, so it was nice to have waterproof pants and jacket on. We continued photographing until about 2:30 pm. That gave us about 30-45 minutes to pack up and get back to Haines before the sun went down. Dinner was at 5:30 pm back over at the Bamboo Room, again. They are beginning to run low on a lot of their ingredients, so it is good that the supply barge arrives tomorrow. After dinner, we returned to our rooms to begin working up our photos from the day – trying to find a few gems in all the photos we took.

    Today was a good day and we are all looking forward to tomorrow. Since it is still snowing tonight, we hope the ground near the eagles will have a nice clean and pretty layer of the while stuff. Tomorrow night we will have our first critique session where we will each show off 3-5 images for comments from the group. These are always good learning events.