{"id":132078,"date":"2023-03-14T05:47:17","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T11:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=132078"},"modified":"2023-03-14T08:08:27","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T14:08:27","slug":"golden-eagle-takeoff-and-flight-in-warm-morning-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/14\/golden-eagle-takeoff-and-flight-in-warm-morning-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Eagle Takeoff And Flight In Warm Morning Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

Golden Eagles give me buck fever.<\/p>\n

Three days ago, as I drove over a hill in a remote area of northern Utah soon after dawn, I saw two Golden Eagles cavorting low in the sky on my left. They were calling out to each other as they circled so I actually heard them before I saw them. They were on the east (wrong) side of the road and backlit so I decided to stop on the road and hope against hope that they’d cross it into better light.<\/p>\n

They did better than that. They not only crossed the road, they landed on some cliffy rocks in excellent light. So I drove down the road, turned around, and came back for them so I could photograph them out my driver’s side window. If they stayed put.<\/p>\n

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One of the eagles flew off before I got my pickup stopped but this one stuck. ‘She’ was perched on a rocky outcrop with a mountain behind her and she continued to call out intermittently to her companion who had apparently landed somewhere on the mountain to the west where I couldn’t see it.<\/p>\n

I’d have given both my shutter finger and my nose-picking finger if she’d been closer but she was close enough for acceptably good photos if she took off, so that’s what I waited for.<\/p>\n

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Other than calling out to the other eagle she seemed pretty content where she was so I had to wait awhile before she took off. When she eventually did she launched in an almost perfect direction for takeoff and flight shots.<\/p>\n

Just look at those crazy pantaloons. To me her legs almost look like they belong to a bear. Or a wolverine.<\/p>\n

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Liftoff.<\/p>\n

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If I’d been closer this would be one of my favorite Golden Eagle photos of all time, if for no other reason than her unusual flight posture. She was reaching for every molecule of air she could scoop with her wings and her tail in order to get her 10 lb. body airborne so her wings are in a perfectly vertical position and her tail is nearly vertical. In the next instant…<\/p>\n

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her wings and tail came down to provide every ounce of lift possible.<\/p>\n

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And she was on her way. I cropped this photo as I did for her shadow.<\/p>\n

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She hugged the ground as she flew because her intention was to…<\/p>\n

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land on another rocky outcrop not far away.<\/p>\n

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Here’s a full frame (uncropped) version of the previous photo to give viewers a better sense of habitat. And a better sense of how much I’ve had to crop most of these photos.<\/p>\n

I stayed with her for quite a while but I could tell she wasn’t going anywhere soon. She continued to call to her companion who was somewhere on the mountain behind her but she usually had her back to me so eventually I drove down the road to look for other birds.<\/p>\n

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47 minutes later when I returned to the same area she was still there but on a different outcrop. And she was calling out almost constantly to the other eagle that I could occasionally hear but not see.<\/p>\n

I rarely shoot video (at my focal lengths without using a tripod my videos are always shaky) but I decided to do it anyway and see if I could capture her calling. If you’re interested in experiencing what I experienced here’s a link to the short video<\/a><\/span><\/span>. The quality isn’t good but you’ll be able to see and hear her calling.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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PS – Readers know that Golden Eagles get me excited and when I have buck fever I can do stupid things. While I was with this eagle the second time I decided to pull my pickup forward to get a better shooting angle if she decided to take off. This is what happened<\/a><\/span><\/span> when I forgot to turn video off as I was trying to drive my pickup forward at the same time I was still holding my lens partially out the window with my left hand. Stupid is as stupid does.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golden Eagles give me buck fever. (9 photos and 2 video clips. Hopefully the video clips work)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,642],"tags":[643,1102,146,153,996,851,311,6810],"class_list":["post-132078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-golden-eagles","tag-aquila-chrysaetos","tag-calling","tag-flight","tag-golden-eagle","tag-habitat","tag-taking-off","tag-utah-2","tag-video-of-golden-eagle-calling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/golden-eagle-3847-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-ymi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132078"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132167,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132078\/revisions\/132167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}