1\/1600, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nJanuary of 2009 was a time of opportunity for bird photographers at Farmington Bay WMA. Bald Eagles in good numbers were feeding on carp in one of the ponds that had good morning light and they weren’t particularly shy about it. Their pugnacious nature combined with a limited number of fish often led to “disagreements” that were fun to photograph.<\/p>\n
This adult was letting “his” displeasure with the close presence of other eagles be known. I’ve always liked this shot for his fierce demeanor and for the good look at his flared “pantaloons” draped into the water.<\/p>\n
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A different crop of the same photo makes the source of his displeasure obvious. There were two other eagles only about a foot in front of him – this juvenile and another adult directly in front of him that we can’t see.<\/p>\n
So what was he protecting?<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bald-eagle-9868-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-9868-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
1\/1000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nHe had the remains of a carp in his talons that we can’t see below the water’s surface and he definitely didn’t want to share it with the other eagles. When he was satisfied that they weren’t an immediate threat he reached down and pulled off what appears to be a pectoral or pelvic fin and swallowed it, glaring at his companions the entire time.<\/p>\n
I hope readers don’t mind me posting more older photos this morning but weather and circumstances have kept me mostly out of the field for some time now. Our weather forecast for this week is much improved so I have reasonable hope of getting new birds in my viewfinder again.<\/p>\n
It’s been a long dry spell.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it comes to food Bald Eagles mean business.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84214,"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":[355,334,2782],"tags":[43,74,1008,141,709,400,5065,311],"class_list":["post-84212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bald-eagles","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-bald-eagle","tag-carp","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-fish","tag-food","tag-haliaeetus-leucocephalus","tag-threatening","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/bald-eagle-9817-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-lUg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84212","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=84212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n