Once in a Lifetime

I've been photographing birds ever since my father took me out to see large flocks of snow geese, when I was just a kid, in Brigantine, NJ.  Once I had my own house, I put up a bird feeder which attracted lots of birds and the love affair with bird photography started in earnest.  Since starting The Virginia Photo Safari business in 2006, my business partner, Alan DeFelice and I have been taking people out to photograph birds in some of the best locations on the east coast.  2009 was no difference.  I had rented a Canon 400 2.8 lens for the safari to Conowingo Dam on the Md/Pa border, to photograph the large number of bald eagles that congregate there every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  But the following day I still had the lens and thought Blackwater NWR would be another good place to try it out.  My long time friend Stephen Vogel went with me to Cambridge, Md to give the lens another workout.  Driving through the refuge, we had seen some eagles, mostly too far away to get a good shot, but when approaching the refuge's osprey platform, we notice a bald eagle that was fairly close.  As we drove up, another eagle landed beside the eagle that was on the platform, now we're cooking two eagles on the same perch!  After debating whether to get out of the car, we decided to slowly get out and see if they stayed put, amazingly they did.

So we got our tripods out and set up the big lenses and were prepared to shoot any possible situation.

Figuring we would get shots like this first image, two birds looking at each other, or looking the same direction, we were pretty happy with the results.  And then it happened.  It was a mated pair and the male jumped on top of the female and it was over in an instant.

What a great time to have rented that lens.  Must have had all the stars lined up for that day.  I never before or have since seen this magnificent sight.  It was truly a shot of a lifetime.