![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bald-eagle-4070-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-4070-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nYesterday while reviewing my older photos I made a double discovery in a short Bald Eagle flight series – a photo I like very much that I didn’t know existed and a mystery.<\/p>\n
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1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n This is the photo that first grabbed my eye. I’ve always loved Bald Eagle flight shots with the shaded Wasatch Mountains in the background that are sometimes possible to get during the morning at Farmington Bay WMA. If you can get decent light on the bird I think the dark, textured mountains are an excellent backdrop for contrasty, very dark brown and white adult Bald Eagles. And this shot is as sharp as a tack. I’m not sure how or why I skipped over the photo for slightly more than ten years but I did.<\/p>\n And yesterday when I rediscovered the photo I happened to look at the next shot in my photo organizer of what turned out to be the same eagle in flight. That’s when the mystery appeared.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This photo was taken four frames in the burst later than the previous one. What in the world are those white spots trailing away from the eagle’s beak? Because of their position and their somewhat arced collective shape as they trail away from the tip of the eagle’s beak while ‘he’ is making a banking, descending approach to the water and ice below my first impulse was to assume the eagle’s beak was the source of the white spots, whatever they are.<\/p>\n But as far as I can tell that doesn’t make much sense. What could they be? And why is it happening? I’ve never seen an eagle throw up food or water in flight. I have photos of an eagle eating a fish in midair where scales that look like these white spots are coming off of the fish but this eagle didn’t have a fish. Or any other food for that matter.<\/p>\n Maybe it’s just a coincidence of timing that makes it look like the white spots are coming off the eagle’s beak and their real source was something else. But what could it be?<\/p>\n I got a possible, unlikely but still possible, hint of what the source could be when I looked more carefully at the uncropped photo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There’s a small portion of another bird in flight, likely a gull, in the upper right corner of the frame. To me it seems even less likely that the gull is the source of the spots than the eagle. I suppose it’s possible that the gull shook water off in flight and that’s what we’re seeing but I’m at least a little skeptical of that theory.<\/p>\n So I’m stumped. It doesn’t really matter of course but things like this drive me bonkers when I can’t figure them out. Any thoughts from my readers? I hope it doesn’t turn out to be something obvious that I just didn’t think of.<\/p>\n If it does it won’t be the first time.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: You’re probably wondering if the three photos in the burst between these two give any hints about the source of the white spots. I wonder the same thing but I deleted them and ten years later I can’t remember why.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday while reviewing my older photos I made a double discovery in a short Bald Eagle flight series – a photo I like very much that I didn’t know existed and a mystery.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bald-eagle-4074-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"bald-eagle-4074-ron-dudley\\"")
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