📸 Photography Raptor Weekend

[ThirdgenTa]

Just wanted to share some photos from my incredible raptor weekend.
I am sure some of you know that I LOVE snowy owls and eagles. There are some snowy owls about an hour away that I have been going out to see, but they have been really far out in the fields. Well I found another place that there are a bunch of snowy owls within a mile distance. I had to go see them. I found 7!!! They are so used to people here that you can literally get about 25 feet from them. This is just a few of the 700 pictures I took of the snowys.
Enjoy the pictures.

This was in someones driveway and the person came home and it just looked at the lady. It's always funny to see them with their head extended looking down.

Some guy kept walking right up to them and scaring them off.

I have always wanted to see an all white one. Most of the time I see the small juveniles that are heavily barred.

On Sunday I went to the fox river between St Charles and Elgin. I saw Eagles locking talons as I was driving. Would have been an awesome picture.
The lighting was terrible so the quality isn't that good. I had to shoot at ISO 1000.

Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures. Any questions, comments, feel free to ask.

Click to read more...

 

[ktraver97ss]

Questions? How the F do you find these birds? lol Those owls are amazing.

 

[DEEZUZ]

Nature

 

[MikeyLikesIt]

Awesome pictures!
This one has meme maker all over it;

WTF are you looking at?
I will shit on your head!

 

[ThirdgenTa]

Questions? How the F do you find these birds? lol Those owls are amazing.

Lol. I've learned about their behavior so you get an idea where to look. For example: Snowy owls live in the arctic. When they have babies, it's hard for the babies to hunt up there because of the frozen tundra. So they are basically forced to travel south. Once they find a spot that has plenty of food, they stay. They will stay until the weather starts to warm up and then they will head back north. They love farm fields especially. So there are some that come down to the Dekalb/Rochelle area every year. So I and other people will drive around looking for them perched up on posts or barns.

As far as Eagles go, they are usually way up north too. Not in the arctic, but in Canada and Alaska. Well the rivers freeze as it get's colder so the fly south. Since they eat fish, they hang around dams and any other open water sources. The more frozen the river is, the more concentrated in one area they are. Also the colder it is, the more active they are.

There is also a website called ebird where you can search for certain species. People report them all the time. There is also facebook too. Then again I don't like when people report them because it turns into a shit show. For example, when I was looking for those snowy's there was about 15 other cars. I found one on a busy road and I was on the side street taking pictures. People saw me taking pictures and parked on the buy street, blocking traffic. There was almost an accident at one point.
Oh yeah and the people are always trying to approach them. I have a friend that reports the snowys every time he sees them and then about an hour later there are 10 cars lined up. Then you get people trying to approach them with their Iphones and flush them further away. You don't really want to make these birds fly if they don't have to because they could die if they don't get the protein they need to fly.

 

[ThirdgenTa]

Awesome pictures!
This one has meme maker all over it;

WTF are you looking at?
I will shit on your head!

I got lucky for this one. You aren't supposed to approach them, but this one happened to be sitting on a tree hanging right over the road. So I just pulled up and stuck my lens straight up and took the picture.

 

[ThirdgenTa]

So a reporter from the tribune saw my pictures and interviewed me and took my picture. Flip through the gallery. I also had him interview my gf and another friend.
Bald eagle sightings along Fox River hit seasonal peak - Elgin Courier-News

 

[utryd2]

Awesome pics

 

[Mook]

Great pics as always. Love seeing them.

 

[Spivitz]

Awesome!

 

[ThirdgenTa]

Thank you!

 

[SinisterSHO]

Awesome shots.

How many eagles are in St Charles? I've seen one chillin in the last tree on boy scout island a couple of times.

 

[FESTER665]

Came in thinking I'd see trucks....

Not disappointed though.

Great pics as usual.

 

[BrianG]

Awesome photos man, you find some great stuff.

 

[ThirdgenTa]

Awesome shots.

How many eagles are in St Charles? I've seen one chillin in the last tree on boy scout island a couple of times.

There were lots. Now that the weather has warmed up, barely any. There are some Eagle nests and Owl nests around the area. They should be having babies soon

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Thanks to these pictures I have now looked up the difference between Hawks and Falcons.

Falconidae is a family of diurnal birds of prey, notably the falcons and caracaras. They differ from hawks, eagles and kites in that they kill with their beaks instead of their talons. There are 5 Illinois species.

 

[DanJ]

Look at those low rates!

I remember a couple years ago when those Eagles were nesting at Mooseheart, the police eventually had to step in and stop people from parking on Randall because it got so dangerous. I saw a ton of bald eagles last summer working the BNSF line from Savanna, IL up to the Twin Cities along the Mississippi.

Nice pics, guessing a 300 or 400mm lens?

 

[Euro]

Awesome shots Brian. Beautiful birds there.

 

[ThirdgenTa]

Thanks to these pictures I have now looked up the difference between Hawks and Falcons.

There is a falcon in Aurora and one in Elgin that stay in the same spot

 

[ThirdgenTa]

Look at those low rates!

I remember a couple years ago when those Eagles were nesting at Mooseheart, the police eventually had to step in and stop people from parking on Randall because it got so dangerous. I saw a ton of bald eagles last summer working the BNSF line from Savanna, IL up to the Twin Cities along the Mississippi.

Nice pics, guessing a 300 or 400mm lens?

200-500mm

That nest blew down but there is another one on the property. The female is getting ready for babies.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

Those snow owls are smug like [MENTION=16]PANDA[/MENTION].

Bald Eagles are so fucking awesome. [MENTION=1983]Outlaw[/MENTION] and I saw one chomping on some roadkill in Hayward this weekend.