![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/pine-siskin-4272-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"pine-siskin-4272-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nIncluding my first Bald Eagle of this migration season.<\/p>\n
Two days ago, on the same morning I photographed the Common Raven I posted a photo of yesterday, I didn’t have a lot of luck getting close to birds but I found and photographed several interesting ones. Because I wasn’t close, none of the photos below are of high quality (all have been cropped significantly or massively) but they document some birds that I was more than happy to find.<\/p>\n
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This Pine Siskin was the first bird I photographed that morning. It had been 15 months since I’d photographed a siskin and I usually find them in the mountains so I was pleasantly surprised to find this one in the low country.<\/p>\n
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The siskin stayed on this twig for about 20 seconds so I got lots of photos of it but this head turn was about the only pose variety the little rascal gave me.<\/p>\n
Nineteen minutes later, in the same general area, I spotted two ravens perched on top of a high cliff so I approached them and it was at that point that my marathon of frustration began as I attempted to photograph some of the 45-50 ravens in flight that eventually showed up to play in the thermals in front of the cliff.<\/p>\n
While I was concentrating on the ravens in flight, an unexpected visitor flew in and landed on top of the same cliff that the two ravens had been on.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/bald-eagle-4775-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-4775-ron-dudley\\"")
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I didn’t see ‘him’ land on the cliff top while I was concentrating on the ravens so I don’t know how long he’d been there before I spotted him. He was far away and high above me and at first I thought he was a Red-tailed Hawk. But when he turned his head in profile and gave me a good look at his bill, I realized that he was an immature, second year Bald Eagle. At that distance, size is hard to judge.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of our Bald Eagles are migratory and only here in winter. This guy was the first one I’d seen this winter.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/bald-eagle-4757-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-4757-ron-dudley\\"")
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So there I was, torn between aiming my lens at the eagle or at the hordes of ravens flying in front of the same cliff. I ended up alternating between them.<\/p>\n
I fully expected the ravens to mob the eagle but that never happened. Occasionally one of the ravens would fly close enough to the eagle for me to get both birds in the frame but that only happened by chance, because there were so many ravens in the air. I never once saw a raven act aggressively toward the eagle, who mostly ignored the ravens.<\/p>\n
For some reason, in this shot the raven looks to be a little too large relative to the size of the eagle but that must be only a matter of depth, perspective and perception.<\/p>\n
I spent over a half hour waiting for the eagle to take off, or for some aggressive action to occur between the perched eagle and the ravens, but neither ever happened so eventually I drove on down the road to look for other birds. I’d already taken nearly a thousand photos of the eagle and the ravens and I was dreading the image-culling job ahead of me.<\/p>\n
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35 minutes later, as my morning of shooting was coming to an end, I approached some utility poles where I’d seen an extremely skittish Prairie Falcon on my previous two trips to the area. I didn’t expect to find the falcon in the same area three times in a row…<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/prairie-falcon-5193-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"prairie-falcon-5193-ron-dudley\\"")
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but I did.<\/p>\n
“She’ was perched atop one of the utility poles on top of a hill far from the road so this photo has been massively cropped. But it documents a Prairie Falcon, a species I haven’t photographed for the last ten months.<\/p>\n
On my previous trips she’d always flown off before I got closer than about 250 yards from her so at least this time she allowed me to document her presence. I’ve still got a long way to go with her but I’m finally making some progress.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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Including my first Bald Eagle of this migration season. (5 photos)<\/p>\n