This is my 4th summer kayaking and photographing a local pair of Eagles at Kensington Metro park, Some might remember my previous posts from this park with the Osprey couple the last few years as well,  give them Blogs a read if you want some of my observations with them from my kayak as well.

Each year after I hear from the locals that the Juvenile Eagles are starting to fly (I go after they start flying to not disturb the nest, I don't care in general for nest compositions anyways)  so yeah I  start making my trips to the park to photograph the action of new Eagles coming into the world of flying.   This below all happen July 3rd.  The last two times there I brought along my tripod and 5D3 for a possible Landscape composition before all the eagle action and the previous 2 times I could'nt make the sunrise  because well I had to wake up at 3:30am to make this one.   been late each time, haha even the pretty picture below I was late about 10 minutes for peak color.  oh well made something out of it I think.  but the Composition below this is from the Island where the nest is looking back at island lake road,  As I set up for this shot I heard both juvenile Eagles already calling for mom and Dad to bring them the frekin fishes!  they were yelling like any baby or young adult anything. its pretty comical watching and listening to the pouting,   often times they will just fly and yell at the same time for this morning fish to be brought in. so yeah they were going off and I felt pressure to get this pic and get in on the action cause the morning fish/s are right at first light from Chip and Jo.    I then while standing here in the water it Turned out to be Jo fly over with a huge fish.  hurry up and Take this pic!  ahh pretty

then get in my kayak and round the corner,  I see one of the young ones fly over me and land in the tree's hard, i could'nt even see him/her he's was out of sight but I could hear him/her   I did'nt see Jo at first then I look maybe 10 feet up and see her,  I said oh crap she's right there, keep calm Steve,  she looked out of breath with this look after carrying the huge fish one of the kids is about to get.  pic below ISO 25,600 and only 1/50 of shutterspeed, it was dark!

Then one of the kids fly over to a perch within sight of the nest, that's this pic below  I missed the shot, i think 1/60 of a shutter speed as I was taking pics of Jo above and knew the perch shots I could get away with a slower shutter speed to keep the predawn light iso down.  not a great pic, just documenting the flight over to the other perch

More pics of Jo sitting on the fish,   now both kids know mom is sitting there with her breakfast and they are going crazy yelling for that food to be flown to the nest. but she seemed to be waiting on something 

Still waiting this is the one that flew over in that above pic,  I had to make a decision what eagle do I want to capture taking off,  do I want Jo above with the fish, that would be a neat shot, do I want the one I can't see just above mom or do I want this one below,  well this one below as you see the light is starting to rise on him/her  soo i decided to go with this one.    Thats always the conundrum with this morning feeding for me,  i've found myself guessing/second guessing where to position my boat each time.   All the fish end up in the nest  I just gotta pic a shot I'm after and hope everything lines up and I'm turned the right way and my boat is turned the right way.  I'm constantly thinking a balance of shutterspeed for metering the sky or when they go inside the treeline and getting decent iso's ,   these first flight shots below I went with 1/800   not really enough to get super sharp wings.  but a good balance overall I think they worked given the low light.    anyways. pics!    

Still yelling for mom to drop off the fish! 

then I see this, she/he notices something and out of my experience when I see this hard look a raptor is usually looking at another raptor,  so I turn right where he's looking and see Chip flying in,   I look at his talons as he flys by  and did'nt see anything,  he was pretty far out i thought, maybe he does'nt have anything yet 

watches dad go out of sight and around the corner

Then I hear a big yell and see this overhead,  I zoomed back to like 330mm  he was soo close

He was banking towards the nest 

then out of the corner of my left eye I see Mom take off with that fish .  important to note timeline, my exif said it was at 6:30.47 am

If you note at the bottom of this pic the kid is hot on her heals racing her to the nest,  gotta beat her sibling to the nest for this fish. 

Then the other one that I was photographing in that pretty light takes off and I get a great sequence of pics here flying over me.   for 8 years photographing Raptors from my kayak I can't believe I have'nt tipped over my kayak when this is happening, haha. I've witnessed it a dozen times and always its hectic on me turning in my seat.      

Then At  6:31.48  almost a minute later Dad is flying in with breakfast for the other kid.  He probally had it in his talons when he flew by(I could'nt tell he was far away and it looks tucked up good here)    What I gathered this time was He did a big loop waiting for Jo to drop off her fish then 1 minute later bring in the second one,  what great parenting on feeding the kids,    its pretty vicious when they drop off these fish in the nest,  the fights between kids and sometimes kids and mom   I witnessed mom Slap one of the kids with her wing last year when she brought in a fish and they were trying to go after it fast.   anyhoo  Chip flying in

love the technique here :)

The kid was going crazy and Chip says woah!

note the wings of the kid guarding and saying mine mine!   Chip is like I'm outta here my parenting is done for the morning

This sequence of pics is pretty sweet.   pretty stoked on a few of them.  

Like this one :)

I see Chip fly around the corner and think hmmmmmm  wonder if he is bathing on a lower branch  so i paddle around the corner look low and did'nt see him at the bath log they like to bath in   but I did see him here on a perch I have yet to photograph them at.  looks like a clean your feet and beak branch,   he keeps cleaning his talons and rubbing his beak on the branch,  note how much they've rubbed off over the years.    

I loooooooooooove this branch :)

I was hoping to get the launch but I could feel my boat start to turn in the water, put down my camera to make a paddle and bam he takes off.  doh! missed that one, oh well 

I go back around to see if any of the kids are perched in the sun,  I see Jo here cooling off with her wings open a bit 

I see this kid in the nest, he/she jumps from the nest 3 feet left to this branch

some neat catchlight on the eye

Still yelling for mom or dad that was not enough!!!  Still hungry! haha 

Takes off and flys over to deep in the shade to cool off.

Then I circle around and find Chip where he likes to sit the last 2 times I was at the lake I found him here.

Then as I was wrapping up for the day I went to talk with my new friend Dave on the shoreline, he points out look!  So I just had to get one more shot.  Paddled over to this scene  did'nt get that close before she flew off with her nice size breakfast for the day.  She totally earned this hearty breakfast.  You and Chip have are great parents!    

and that was my morning time with Chip and Joanne, it was great watching them feed their kids.  I said to my friend Rich last year that its like those fish are brought in one after another on this morning breakfast routine and I wanted to do a blog last year on this behavior but never got around to it, so here it is.    1 minute apart all coordinated, I truely believe Jo was waiting for Chip to bring in his fish so they would keep the calm a bit with kids not fighting at the dinner table.    They are super super smart resourceful Eagles and its been fun watching them raise there kids the last 4 years,  I think they've had 7 kids now I witness them have in that time

Cheers and thanks for reading

Steve