Bald eagle defending nest

[Shirley Woods]

The eagles' nest, originally built by ospreys, is at the top of a pine tree on the banks of the LaHave river in Nova Scotia. A pair of ospreys live nearby, and sometimes harass the eagles by swooping on the nest.
Here the parent eagle is screaming at an approaching osprey while her fledgling watches anxiously.
Taken with a Canon 40D and 500f4 IS at 1/1600, f11 ISO 800.
Tomorrow I'll post a pic of the osprey diving on the nest.
Shirley Woods

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Interesting behavior and story. I wish you would have pointed the camera a bit more to the left to see the entire wing. It could go a bit brighter for my taste. Thanks for sharing!

[Maxis Gamez]

Very good behavior but this image does not help your story. I would like to see more of the nest.

[Shirley Woods]

I agree with both your comments on the nest. One of the problems was the restricted field of view of the 500mm tele.
Axel, I would like the image to be brighter too. It was until I uploaded the JPEG from Photoshop to this site. In transition it became darker and lost colour definition.
Shirley Woods

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I agree with both your comments on the nest. One of the problems was the restricted field of view of the 500mm tele.
Axel, I would like the image to be brighter too. It was until I uploaded the JPEG from Photoshop to this site. In transition it became darker and lost colour definition.
Shirley Woods

If the image looks very different in PS compared with a JPG in your browser then you might try to calibrate your monitor and see the thread regarding color differences: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...280#post125280

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Shirley, You did a good job of finding a clear lane to the adult but the image has lots of problems.

As you get more experience, you will learn the photographing birds very high in trees is not a good plan.
You will learn that when there are many branches blocking part of the scene that making images is not a good plan.
You will learn that sometimes it is good to enjoy wonderful behavior while realizing that there is no chance to create and effective image.

You wrote, "One of the problems was the restricted field of view of the 500mm tele."

What the folks above were suggesting was that once you focused on the eagle you should have pointed your lens left and down to include all of the eagle(s) and more of the nest. The branches and sky that dominate the image do not add anything.