7D Mark ii and 100-400 mark ii review Day 3: More Eagles

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Kent Jarrett

Today I headed back to Lock and Dam 14 on the Mississippi River. Today was my local photo club’s Eagle Outing. I knew I was there mostly to guide and pay it forward. There was a total of 23 Photographers from our We Click Photo Club. The club even rented a pair of 15-600’s for the people to share. I believe a good time was had by most of them.

Snow was in the forecast, clouds and tougher lighting and warmer temps meant less eagle activity. However, I was pleasantly surprised that I took 681 photos and have 116 keepers. That is a pretty good “keeper” rate. Especially for only being the third day on the new combination in my hands.

All shots in this post are from the Canon 7D mkii + Canon 100-400 mkii

Study the eye in the eagle below, you can see her Nictitating eyelid

Money Shot: Classic Fishing Pose

What do you think so far?

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Thanks for stopping by, Life is good, and I am blessed!
Kent

7D Mark ii and 100-400 mark ii review Day 2: Eagles

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Kent Jarrett

When I first got to my Eagles, the skies were blue. I started off with the Canon 7D Mark ii and Canon 100-400 mark ii hand held, and the Canon 1DX + 500 on my gimbal.

The Canon 7D Mark ii is a little slower to grab focus in on the bird in flight, but tracks WAY better than my old Canon 7D’s (I had 2).

I then switched bodies and lenses, so of course the light condition had changed by then. Light fell apart around 1 when clouds rolled in. Heavy cloud cover until 3:30,,, so the best part of the day was crap.

7D Mark ii + 100-400 mark ii

Canon 1DX + 100-400 mark iiTry to ignore the skies, both birds where shot handheld, full-frame and same edit script (Actions)

What is your first impression? More to come on this field testing! This is only Day 2.

Few more Canon 7D MKii + Canon 100-400mm IS MKii to chew on.

Heavy Crop, but getting closer to catching the talon to talon shot!

What do you think so far?

Thanks for stopping by, Life is good, and I am blessed!
Kent

In Flight Collision!

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Kent Jarrett

Until today I had always thought that hummingbirds were the only birds that can fly backwards or upside down.

Today at Lock and Dam 14 on the Mississippi River I witnessed and documented an in air collision between two adult eagles. I have been trying to get a full frame talon to talon grab, this was really close and maybe more rare.

Two eagles were circling looking for fish forgot to check their airspace and ran into each other. The impact completely rolled the top eagle over in mid air. He went into a free fall before he could right himself and then continued on with his day of fishing.

Even though I clipped some wings in the series, still pretty cool!

Thanks for stopping by, Life is good, and I am blessed!
Kent

The Aging of Bald Eagles

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Kent Jarrett

I was asked today at Lock and Dam 14, how I could tell the age of the different eagles. Today there was a 4th year bird that was very active. I call the four year olds a dirty bird (They don’t sell well).

The Bald Eagle that most everyone can identify is the adult. This bird is described as: large size; bright white head, neck and tail: dark brown body and wings; and bright yellow bill. It takes 5 years to reach this plumage.

The 1st year bird is a very dark bird. The body of this bird is two shades of brown; darker on the breast and lighter brown on the lower body. There is no whitish triangle on the back, the upper wings are two toned brown and the bill is dark. The head is dark as well.

First Year Bird: PBKJ6687-FrameShop

Second Year Bird:

PBKJ6180-FrameShop

The 2nd and 3rd year birds look different from the 4th year. The belly shows white marks. There will also be dramatic white patches that appear in the wing-pits. The whitish triangle often appears on the upper back of the bird and the top of the head is often whitish. All of these markings appear on the 2nd and 3rd year bird, but a way to tell the difference between a 2nd and 3rd year bird is the tail feathers. The 3rd year birds have all but maybe 1 of the flight feathers that are the same length…giving the trailing edge a smooth or regular look. The 2nd year birds only have about half of the flight feathers are longer than the others…this gives the appearance of ragged or irregular feathers.

Third Year Bird:Fourth Year Bird: (The Dirty Bird):

Fifth year and older Bird:

Eagles are now living to 20 to 25 years of age in the wilds. (Yeah!)

Thanks for stopping by, Life is good, and I am blessed!
Kent

How Many is Enough Eagles?

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Kent Jarrett

Today at Lock and Dam 14 along the Mississippi River just South of Le Claire Iowa under perfect blue skies, I took 41 GIG’s of Eagle photos. Just in case you are wondering that is 1715 images. After the first pass through I was able to delete almost 200. That means 1500 images to edit. Just a few teasers for tonight.

This one reminds me of our dog Sadie the ways she cocks her head.