![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/bald-eagle-4377-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-4377-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nshe sure seemed pleased with their performance.<\/p>\n
After their mating was over I hung around for a while in case they took off and allowed me some decent flight shots but they seemed content on the ice so eventually I left the area.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/bald-eagles-on-ice-9201-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagles-on-ice-9201-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
I took this shot with another camera at 35mm to give viewers a more expansive look at what I was seeing. The eagles are on the ice in the middle of the frame.<\/p>\n
Notice the tracks on the ice passing just to the right of the eagles. More about them below.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/bald-eagles-on-ice-cell-phone-b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagles-on-ice-cell-phone-b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Here’s another perspective taken with my cell phone. The eagles are the tiny dots in the center of the frame and marked with the smaller red arrow.<\/p>\n
If you’re on a large screen and have sharp eyes you should be able to see tracks on the ice beginning at the far shore, passing just to the right of the eagles, and ending near the center right of the frame. Those prints were almost certainly made by a large mammal, probably a deer or an elk, and it was obvious to me that the animal fell through the ice where it thinned near the shore. The larger red arrow marks the spot where the ice gave way and we can see where the animal struggled through the thin ice to reach the nearby shore.<\/p>\n
Even though they were far away these Bald Eagles saved my morning – other than photographing them I was essentially bird-skunked. And I believe it was the first time I’ve ever photographed Bald Eagles mating so the drive up into the Wasatch Mountains was definitely worth it.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Notes: <\/em><\/p>\n\n- Most of these photos were taken at or near 1\/4000, f\/7.1, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender. The first eleven photos were all cropped to 35% of the original image.<\/em><\/li>\n
- Very few of Utah’s wintering Bald Eagles remain in the state for the breeding season – most head north to raise their young. There’s at least one Bald Eagle nest in this general area but at least one of those eagles was on the nest as I passed by so seeing these eagles mating on the ice several miles away encourages me. Hopefully they’ll nest in Utah this year.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With a voyeuristic magpie and evidence of additional drama on the ice thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82908,"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":[355,334,363,391],"tags":[43,57,477,5006,2279,400,1016,318],"class_list":["post-82904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bald-eagles","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-bald-eagle","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-cloacal-kiss","tag-deer-or-elk-fell-through-the-ice","tag-east-canyon-reservoir","tag-haliaeetus-leucocephalus","tag-mating","tag-wasatch-mountains"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/bald-eagle-4309-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-lza","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82904","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=82904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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