Eagles!

PixelRabbit · Apr 22, 2013

I put these in Just For Fun because they aren't brilliant by any stretch of the imagination but I wanted to share my "first time" having a shot at the eagles even if it was a short one lol.

Mr Rabbit and I were out for a drive and headed over to one of the eagle spots, we walked out to find them in a tree farrrr in the distance. I walked across the beach towards them (it was all open there was no sneaking lol) I got to the waters edge and waited. Dad stayed in the tree and watched the two young ones for a while then headed off away from me. The two young ones put on a bit of a show overhead. They were pretty high up so no brilliant shots just some interesting ones. I was thrilled to just find them and get something!! I'm planning a day trip to this location, can't wait !

Not sure what they were up to, either playing or "playing **wink wink** going to look it up later.

At first I thought the top one had the bottom one by the head lol, I think he's just peeking through the other one's tail lol

The "best" shot of the bunch.

PixelRabbit · Apr 23, 2013

Monday morning bump....after a week and a half nursing Miss Em back to health from getting 4 wisdom teeth pulled and Mr Rabbit on some time off...
I love my people to bits but boy do they harsh my photography mellow when they are around that long!

PixelRabbit · Apr 23, 2013

After finishing my coffee I realized I forgot to use the "haha" font in that post and people might read that as I'm serious lol quite the opposite is true, normally it's like pulling teeth to get time together...oh the irony! Lol

JacaRanda · Apr 23, 2013

I am jealous that you've found Eagles. We keep going back to the baby owls. In a way, I will be glad when they fly off to make lives of their own so we can start stalking something else (eagles). I look forward to your future shots from that area.

How is the new lens treating you...when you get the chance?

PixelRabbit · Apr 23, 2013

Ah see now this is a case of you always want what you don't have

I'm totally jealous of your owls! The eagles were relatively easy to find by collecting info from the net and locals, now owls on the other hand aren't as easy to track down with the same methods, I've tried ! There is a gorgeous Great Horned around here but he is very elusive thus far, I've only seen the tail end of him twice.

I'm really enjoying the new lens Jaca

I've been meaning to post a followup thread on it but life got crazy busy, now that things are back to "normal" I should be able to get to it! It is definitely different and going to take a while to learn how to use it well but I'm getting results that are very promising!

sm4him · Apr 23, 2013

I actually like the second one best, as well as the third one of them...err..."playing" or whatever they're doing.

I cannot WAIT to get a longer lens--got my money sitting in my account, just can't quite settle on the lens. This past Sunday, I watched this epic battle between three hawks and two crows (and a turkey vulture, but to be fair to the vulture, I think he was just passing through). I took a bunch of pictures of the aerial moves, but the 300mm just wasn't enough lens. Made me sad. :lmao:

JacaRanda said:
I am jealous that you've found Eagles. We keep going back to the baby owls. In a way, I will be glad when they fly off to make lives of their own so we can start stalking something else (eagles). I look forward to your future shots from that area.

How is the new lens treating you...when you get the chance?

I'm with Pixel on this one. I would PAY someone to show me where some durn owls are around here. :lol:

I know plenty of places where they are common, and find great spots for them, but I can't find a single stupid owl. Or any of the smart ones either. :lmao:

As far as the eagles: Have you ever used ebird? It's a great resource to find particular birds in your area. You might have to create an account to use the observation data, I'm not sure. I have an account anyway, so I don't remember if you really need one or not.
Anyway, it's ebird.org; what I do if I'm looking for good spots for a particular type of bird is I go to the "Explore Data" section. There's all kinds of options, but for this particular purpose, I use the Bar Charts, then I select my area, and either choose "counties" or "hot spots." Then it'll give you a list to choose from--so for instance, you pick "counties" and then "Orange County." Now you'll get a list of ALL the bird observations that have been submitted for your county. If you scroll down and find Bald Eagle, to the right of the bird name you'll see the word "map." Click that, and you'll see a map with little markers denoting all the observations submitted for bald eagles in Orange County. Click on any one of those markers and it tells you when they were observed, and how many. For example, several people have evidently seen a bald eagle in Irvine Regional Park.

As I said, there's a lot of other ways to explore the data as well--it's an incredible tool!

Sorry, Pixel, for the slight thread derail.

JacaRanda · Apr 23, 2013

sm4him said:
I actually like the second one best, as well as the third one of them...err..."playing" or whatever they're doing.

I cannot WAIT to get a longer lens--got my money sitting in my account, just can't quite settle on the lens. This past Sunday, I watched this epic battle between three hawks and two crows (and a turkey vulture, but to be fair to the vulture, I think he was just passing through). I took a bunch of pictures of the aerial moves, but the 300mm just wasn't enough lens. Made me sad. :lmao:

JacaRanda said:

I am jealous that you've found Eagles. We keep going back to the baby owls. In a way, I will be glad when they fly off to make lives of their own so we can start stalking something else (eagles). I look forward to your future shots from that area.

How is the new lens treating you...when you get the chance?

Click to expand...

I'm with Pixel on this one. I would PAY someone to show me where some durn owls are around here. I know plenty of places where they are common, and find great spots for them, but I can't find a single stupid owl. Or any of the smart ones either. :lmao:

As far as the eagles: Have you ever used ebird? It's a great resource to find particular birds in your area. You might have to create an account to use the observation data, I'm not sure. I have an account anyway, so I don't remember if you really need one or not.
Anyway, it's ebird.org; what I do if I'm looking for good spots for a particular type of bird is I go to the "Explore Data" section. There's all kinds of options, but for this particular purpose, I use the Bar Charts, then I select my area, and either choose "counties" or "hot spots." Then it'll give you a list to choose from--so for instance, you pick "counties" and then "Orange County." Now you'll get a list of ALL the bird observations that have been submitted for your county. If you scroll down and find Bald Eagle, to the right of the bird name you'll see the word "map." Click that, and you'll see a map with little markers denoting all the observations submitted for bald eagles in Orange County. Click on any one of those markers and it tells you when they were observed, and how many. For example, several people have evidently seen a bald eagle in Irvine Regional Park.

As I said, there's a lot of other ways to explore the data as well--it's an incredible tool!

Sorry, Pixel, for the slight thread derail.