Among my biggest American photo challenges was getting a quality photo of a Golden Eagle. For decades I wished for an opportunity to take a good Golden Eagle photo, but between rarely encountering a Golden and never really being close enough to get a good quality photo, Golden Eagles remained on another scale of difficulty for years, actually decades.
One California morning, I was on alert while driving along a winding road that circled to the top of steep grass-covered hills with deep a canyon below because previous experience revealed this was a place of solitude and plenty for wintering birds of prey. I relished the opportunity to spend the day in this remote area, knowing that just about any California raptor could appear around the next corner.
I was intent to find a photo subject as I continued my bird monitoring schedule, but the morning proved to be quite subdued for wildlife sightings. About noon, while driving slowly around the winding contour near the upper edge of a grassy hillside, a wintering Ferruginous Hawk floated upward from the valley below, and in a moment it was circling right beside my pickup truck! I was literally looking eye to eye with the Ferrug just beyond my open window.
As the big hawk elevated I stepped outside and started photographing the western raptor that appeared mostly white from below. In sync, a dark morph Red-tailed Hawk joined the Ferrug from below and they began weaving circles in the sky as they soared upward on the same rising thermal, seemingly mirroring one another. I photographed one hawk, then the other, and back to the first again as they sliced their way through the winter sunlight. I beamed a big, big smile and thought, “What Luck!”
Suddenly a big female Golden Eagle dived into view from behind, just 20 feet to my left, and my already high excitement level spiked with another rush of adrenaline. I followed the monsta eagle’s every move through my camera lens as it swept low across the hillside, taking key photos along its flight line. Within moments the dark Red-tailed Hawk was diving after the eagle. The photos I took as the big hawk approached the Golden Eagle graphically show just how Big the golden girl really was as the 2 raptors lined up wing tip to wing tip in a gliding flight.
Just then, another Red-tail zipped into the scene, a first-year hawk as evidenced by its brown tail. Instead of joining the fray, the young hawk flew back in my direction for a photo op as it caught the updraft off the hillside. As the hawk lifted ever higher, a swirling flock of 40 Common Ravens entered the scene, and a couple ravens peeled off to dive low at the eagle too.
The second-year Golden Eagle repeatedly flew up the canyon using updrafts and strong wingbeats to propel itself, then dived low against the dry landscape, turning on its upswing to provide some sweet opportunities to photograph the big eagle as she pivoted in flight. I had the impression there must be some prey remains in the valley that attracted the raptor action, but I never noticed any.
The big Golden eventually landed on an adjacent hillside, only to be harried by the Ferruginous Hawk that screamed a war cry as it dived at the eagle repeatedly. The Golden Eagle ducked the hawk a couple times, then leaped into the air and flared its broad wings in a low flight, only to circle around the hilltop – and although I waited eagerly for it to re-appear, I never saw it again.
As I walked back to the truck I caught my breath and calmed a bit, only to find a flock of nearly 30 Mountain Bluebirds surrounding the vehicle – this avian episode was becoming more bizarrely wonderful with each tick of the clock. I tried photographing the bluebirds, but they took flight en masse around the truck in a lovely scene that would have added spice to any pickup commercial.
As I opened the door, the Ferruginous Hawk dropped into a low flyby and we both exited the memorable scene of a great wildlife encounter – fitting, considering it was the Ferrug that started the action-filled event. You just never know what might surprise you around the next corner!!
While I expected to see a couple hawks as I worked my way through the rarely visited back end of the large private ranch where I was assigned to work periodically, I never imagined I would see and photograph a Golden Eagle in those rugged hills and canyons east of Los Angeles, not even a young, second-winter individual. Luckily, even though it was high noon with the sun overhead as the eagle winged into view, during almost all of its time within my view the eagle was flying below my hillside position, which provided good lighting for photography with a minimum of shadowing. It was an exhilarating to follow the eagle’s flight during that breakthrough photo session, and every bit as exciting to see the photos that evening in my field office.
Since taking the memorable first photos of a Golden Eagle almost exactly 10 years ago, I have had many, many special opportunities to photograph Goldens in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nevada, and California, and each episode gets my heart pumping faster with the excitement of seeing such a remarkably large and powerful bird on the wing or perching tall in remote landscapes.
Article and photographs by Paul Konrad
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