![\"bald-eagle-8359\"](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/bald-eagle-8359.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-8359\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a01\/2000, f\/8. ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n This nearly adult (head not\u00a0yet completely white) Bald Eagle is neither tame or captive.\u00a0 But for several days\u00a0in 2009, beginning on a\u00a0bitterly cold Christmas morning, this adult adopted a favorite perch (a relatively short pole) that looked out over a pond with fish in it.\u00a0 The pole was so close to the road that I\u00a0sometimes had to take off my teleconverter to get the entire bird in the frame.\u00a0 It warmed my heart that the\u00a0eagle was so comfortable with me\u00a0this close\u00a0and that was a very <\/em>good thing because Mia and I\u00a0almost froze to death over the many hours of photographing this magnificent bird.<\/p>\n This is the normal appearance of the Bald Eagle’s eye.\u00a0 In adult birds, eye color is typically some shade of yellow with a distinctly visible pupil (though juvenile birds have much darker eyes).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2000, f\/8. ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n But every few seconds the bird swipes the nictitating membrane across the eye to moisten and lubricate it.\u00a0 It begins at the inside corner of the eye closest to the beak and moves across to the outside corner.\u00a0 Here the membrane is almost completely closed.\u00a0 It happens very quickly and I needed a fast shutter speed to freeze it.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/2500, f\/8. ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n In this image the membrane completely covers the eye but it’s obvious that the eagle still has its vision because we can still see the pupil through the nictitan.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a01\/3200, f\/7.1. ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n At certain light angles the membrane can appear opaque to us, as in this shot\u00a0taken\u00a0while the eagle was\u00a0in the midst of\u00a0a violent head shake (you can see a few\u00a0drops of \u00a0moisture being thrown off the bill).\u00a0 This is the dreaded “steel eye” referred to by us bird photographers – “dreaded” because the effect is generally undesirable in nature photography and seems to invariably happen in an otherwise spectacular shot.\u00a0\u00a0 For some reason, steel eye seems to\u00a0occur much more often in\u00a0particular species of birds – magpies and ravens for example.\u00a0 Perhaps it has something to do with the reflective nature of the outside of the membrane of these species but that’s a “stab in the dark” on my part…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n