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<\/a><\/p>\nAnyone familiar with Antelope Island will likely recognize this scene. This is the fairly short road to the parking lot for the trailhead to Frary Peak.\u00a0Parts of it are an incredible 23% grade – much, much\u00a0steeper than it looks here. For comparison’s sake the maximum grade allowed on US Interstates is 7%. Our notoriously steep I-80 up Parley’s Canyon here in Utah is 6% at its steepest.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0large rock next to the road on the right\u00a0is a favorite perch for many birds, including raptors. It sits high on the side of the mountain\u00a0overlooking a huge bowl (largely out of frame to the right)\u00a0that can be hunted by raptors using the rock as a perch. But there’s a huge problem with photographing birds on that rock because you approach it from the north which nearly always makes a bird perched there strongly backlit. In my opinion those\u00a0types of images of birds\u00a0usually (though not always) suck.<\/p>\n
I took this documentary image of the road and the rock yesterday from the south, looking north.<\/p>\n
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If you’re lucky enough to have already passed the rock, turned around in the parking lot, and then find a bird on the rock as you’re coming back down the hill you can get some nice shots in good light – but that’s about your only chance with raptors.\u00a0 A few of the smaller birds might stick on the rock as you go by it to get better light but there’s very little chance of a raptor putting up with that. You’re just too close to the rock as you pass.<\/p>\n A few years ago I caught this juvenile\u00a0Red-tailed Hawk just as it was landing on the rock. It wasn’t there when I went up the hill but in the\u00a0minute or so it took me to turn around and begin to descend – voila, there it was!\u00a0But believe me, that very seldom happens.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ok, enough prelude – here’s what happened with the\u00a0Golden Eagle three days ago. Fair warning – from this point on you’ll see only crappy images.<\/p>\n To give readers a sense of distance the\u00a0following three photos are all full frame (uncropped). The first one was taken with my 500mm + 1.4 tc and the\u00a0next two with my 100-400mm @ 400mm.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I was coming up the hill and began to turn the first corner I saw something very large on the rock. It was backlit of course and it was so big that at first\u00a0I thought someone might have placed a rock cairn on the rock. Out of curiosity I scoped it with my 500mm and even in this light I could immediately tell it was a Golden Eagle (instead of\u00a0a juvenile\u00a0Bald Eagle)\u00a0because in one pose I got a glimpse of golden plumage on its neck.\u00a0In ten years I\u00a0had never seen an eagle of either species perched here.<\/p>\n My heart immediately started pounding. It’s\u00a0typically impossible to get within\u00a0a\u00a0hundred yards of a perched\u00a0Golden Eagle and I was already closer than that. And Goldens are my #1 photo quarry so\u00a0my mind was racing. How in the hell\u00a0was I going to get on the other side of that bird for good light?<\/p>\n I quickly realized I had no reasonable options. My only choice was to drive up the road and hope the eagle let me get past it without flying off\u00a0but the chances of that were essentially nonexistent because I’d pass within about 25′ of where the bird was perched and\u00a025′ from a wild\u00a0Golden Eagle just isn’t going to happen without it flying off. I watched if for a while hoping not to disturb it but realized that someone else\u00a0could drive down from the parking lot at any\u00a0second and scare it off so I decided to make a cautious approach and see what happened.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I started driving up the hill at about 1 mph while\u00a0steering with my knee and watching the eagle through my smaller\u00a0100-400mm zoom lens. Every foot of progress I made without the eagle flying off amazed me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was parallel to the rock when the eagle spooked – so close that\u00a0it filled my frame vertically at\u00a0only 400mm\u00a0just before it flew. I was actually at the point where I was about to begin getting further away from the eagle again on the “good side” for light so my\u00a0heart sank when it launched. You can see the tip of the rock at bottom left.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n