Bald Eagle Over Wildwing Lake

Bald Eagle Over Wildwing Lake, a photo by JKissnHug on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This evening, I went to meet my friend Debbie Miller, her husband Paul, and sister Mary Jo for a quick photoshoot at Kensington Metropark. Debbie and her husband are in town to attend the Howell Nature Center Birds of Prey nature photography workshop with me tomorrow afternoon. We walked around Kensington Metropark feeding the small songbirds and enjoying a few hours of getting reacquainted. We noticed the sound of a massive hot air balloon heating air that was drifting over Wildwing Lake. We looked again and found several more that were floating over the park at much higher altitudes. We quickly abandoned feeding the birds and nearly ran over to Wildwing to watch the balloon land. We also hoped to see Sandhill Cranes fly in to roost for the night. We watched the hot air balloon for awhile and were soon treated with a dozen or so cranes coming into land at sunset. We shot the sunset and wandered further down the boardwalk and a gentleman said to us - have you seen the Bald Eagle up in the tree? We said no we hadn't, he said it is up there in the trees on the island. I looked in my binoculars and sure enough, I spotted this adult Bald Eagle roosting near an abandoned Great Blue Heron nest in the heron rookery.

The sun had already set and there was almost no available light to get a decent photo. I quickly borrowed Debbie's tripod and took the best photo I could under the terrible lighting conditions. We all quickly took as many photos as we could and watched this magnificent eagle before it got restless and flew away toward the west into taller trees on the other side of the lake.

I was so delighted to see this eagle because I had gone out to Wildwing Lake on several previous occasions when a Bald Eagle was sighted in the area. Each time prior to this, I never got to see an eagle at Kensington Metropark. Today, when we were not even looking for one, we had the great fortune to spot one directly across from us within camera view. With the dwindling light, we were in awe of this magnificent creature that made our outing a very memorable one.