Bald Eagle

I'm back working at home due to Covid, but I needed to pick up some stuff so I walked over to the office. And I decided to take my camera, just in case :-)

I was taking photos of the river and the ice when I saw a bird fly out of the trees nearby. It was large and I instinctively zoomed my telephoto to the max and swung to follow it. As usual, I had the focus set on a center spot which is not the best for tracking birds in flight but there wasn't time to change it. I did my best to take a few shots when I thought I was close to centered. The bird flew across the river and landed in a tree on the other side.

I thought it might be a bald eagle, but I wasn't sure. Maybe it was just a large raven? Zooming in on the shots on my camera I could see the white head and tail of an adult bald eagle. Bald eagles are quite common some places, but I don't see many in Saskatoon. I had seen one about a month ago when I was out running. Maybe they migrate through in the fall? Although the end of November in Saskatoon is more winter than fall.

It was over an hour later when I was walking home on the other side of the river (the railway bridge is  one way). I was keeping an eye out for the bald eagle but I didn't really I expect to see it. I figured it would be long gone. I checked out various dead trees along the bank where it might perch. Surprisingly, it was in the same tree I had seen it land in. I'm not sure if it had been sitting there the whole time or whether it just happened to be back there.

It wasn't easy to try to get a good shot. There were lots of branches in the way and the snow was deep off the path. And I didn't want to scare it away so I was moving slowly. Then a magpie landed in the tree near the eagle and started squawking at it. (just visible in the lower left of the photo below) I'm not sure if it was my approach or the magpie or a combination, but the eagle had enough and launched into the air and flew away.

Seeing the bald eagle was a nice surprise for a day I wasn't really expecting much. And despite not having my big lens, I managed to get a few semi-passable photos.

Coincidentally, we recently used a couple of my other bald eagle photos in EcoSask News.

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