Image techs for this series: 1\/4000 – 1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 320, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8811-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"golden-eagle-8811-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
The eagle was high on a ridge and quite a distance from me, far enough that if ‘she’ hadn’t been a Golden Eagle I probably wouldn’t have stopped for her. She was partially hidden by vegetation so my only hope for even marginal image quality was for her to take off in my direction.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8814-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"golden-eagle-8814-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
She complied. This is the photo I posted two days ago. I’m including it again because it’s an essential part of the series. And because I like it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8815-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"golden-eagle-8815-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Golden Eagles are huge, heavy birds so it took her a while to come off the ridge.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8816-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"golden-eagle-8816-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Her powerful legs and lethal talons were often on full display as she labored to gain elevation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8817-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"golden-eagle-8817-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
This flight posture is similar to the second photo in the series. Only her position relative to the ground has changed, slightly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8838-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"golden-eagle-8838-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
After she cleared the ridge I only had a sky background but at least there were a few thin, wispy clouds back there.<\/p>\n
I got many photos of her during takeoff and in flight but I only included a few of them here. If you’re curious about how many shots in the series I skipped, that can be determined by reading the image file numbers by passing your cursor over the image (if you’re not on a mobile device).<\/p>\n
Yes, I wish I’d been closer. Because of the distance involved and the significant cropping I did the image quality of these photos falls short of what I hope are my usual standards.<\/p>\n
But hey, it’s a Golden Eagle.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On a completely unrelated note:<\/em><\/p>\nI often make reference to the fact that I grew up on a farm 17 miles northwest of Cut Bank, Montana, not far from Glacier National Park, the vast Bob Marshall Wilderness Area and some of the most beautiful and unspoiled country in the USA. Readers sometimes ask why I left MT to live along Utah’s crowded Wasatch Front with its filthy winter air and right wing, religion-controlled politics.<\/em><\/p>\nThis is why.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Cut-Bank-weather.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
And yesterday I saw that the wind chill in Cut Bank had been 52\u00b0 below zero. That’s’ more than enough reason for me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Late addendum: Here’s a recent report from West Glacier, west of Cut Bank.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/West-Glacier-weather.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The rest of the story. As promised.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94792,"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":[3,334,642],"tags":[31,643,5619,146,153,2738,311],"class_list":["post-94785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-golden-eagles","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-aquila-chrysaetos","tag-cut-bank-montana-weather","tag-flight","tag-golden-eagle","tag-takeoff","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/golden-eagle-8816-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-oEN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94785","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=94785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}