I attended the annual Hudson River Eagle Fest, which is presented by Teatown and based at Croton Point Park in Croton on Hudson, NY. I dragged my dad and a couple friends up with me, Kathy Willens, the best Associated Press photographer out there, and R.J. Partington, who didn’t bring a hat and really enjoyed that nice cold breeze coming up the Hudson.
The shot above? Can’t lie, I took that at the Bear Mountain State Park Zoo, which was a great way to cap a fun day — you can get right up close to an eagle after scanning the horizons all day looking for them in the distance.
Here’s what our most common view of the eagles looked like:
Above image was shot with a 2x extender on my 400mm lens, so 800mm @ f/6.3 I believe. We did get closer to an eagle when an immature one flew over our heads at Charles Point Park, near Indian Point, in Peekskill — of course, my camera was in the truck.
We had a better view at Bear Mountain though:
All together, we saw over a dozen bald eagles on the Hudson, along with a red-tailed hawk near Iona Island. This year also had a cool bonus when I saw Teatown used one of my bald eagle photos on the cover of their big regional map, which is given out to thousands of attendees.
Here’s one from 2009:
Nice Bald Eagles!
But the Eagle at Bear Mountain is stuck in a cage for the past 27 years this makes me think we can do better then that for her. Why doesn’t the airmen take her up for a ride in a plane so she can fly again before she rots in that cage. Just because we keep her safe doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss flying..
Julie, I think that particular eagle was injured long ago and can no longer fly, that’s why she’s in the zoo. You want someone to take it up in an airplane?
-D
thank you! I had some better results last year though!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3560/3339565736_7a65cebf92_o.jpg
My friend Peter Jung spotted a wounded bald eagle near the river in Rensselaer County, and braved horrible weather to help the DEC save it:
http://www.sampratt.com/sam/2010/03/the-eagle-adventure.html
I’ll definitely take a look, thanks!