January, 2008
On a lovely Saturday in January, 2008 we drove up to Mt Vernon, got a hotel, and then got up early Sunday morning (5:00AM) and drove east on Hwy 20 along the Skagit River to the area between Rockport and Marblemount (map) to see if we could get a few pictures of the eagles that congregate on the river there in the winter. We hadn't been very lucky doing this over the years, though to be honest, we had only gone up there twice before in the last 20 years. Some weekends people see hundreds and the next only a few... usually due to weather.
The first time was back in the early 90's before I had rekindled my interest in photography. We went on a river float trip to see the eagles and in 2 hours only saw one and that one was almost too far away to be sure it was actually a bald eagle. And it was the second coldest weekend on record (no wonder the eagles slept in). The second time was a couple of years ago and we saw a few more, but no pictures.
This time I was prepared. I rented a 600mm lens for the weekend to make sure I could get close. Unfortunately, the weather failed to cooperate once again. It was a very cold, very foggy day on Sunday (after being beautiful on Saturday) so the conditions were not the best for wildlife photography. However, I did manage to pull off this shot and a sequence of the eagle landing on a tree branch (you can see the rest of the series at Flickr). We did see a lot of eagles this trip and hope to get back up there again next year. December through February is the best time to go, but we are going to try December this year.
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