Home from Homer
My adventure in Homer, Alaska has concluded with the all-night flight from Anchorage to Orlando (through Seattle) and it looks to have been a good time both for me and those who participated in my first "major" photo workshop/tour (I suppose I should include my partner in this venture, Ric, as well). The weather was iffy the first few days with snow on 2 days and overcast in between followed by 2 1/2 days of sunshine with strong winds and bitter cold. The birds didn't seem to mind but our group of 6 included 4 from Florida and 2 from California - a bunch of wimps in weather with sub-zero wind chills.
Bald Eagle in flight over Kachmak Bay (click to view larger)
The photo ops here are nothing short of amazing and often can be achieved with fairly short focal lengths - I shot virtually everything with a 70-200 zoom with a 1.4X teleconverter (like the image above) and only dragged out the 500mm monster on a few occassions for most "headshots" like this silhouette:
Bald Eagle at sunrise (click to view larger)
Once in a while the opportunity would present itself and I was able to make portraits with the zoom lens - this immature eagle was loudly announcing to the others that it had a fish . . .
Chatty immature Bald Eagle (click to view larger)
Though Bald's are the main attraction in Homer there are other birds on The Spit (though I sometimes wonder if I am the only one paying attention to them) including Glaucous-winged and Mew Gulls as well as the ever-present Northwestern Crows (who also hang around to clean up the scraps left by the eagles):
Northwestern Crow (click to view larger)
Out in the water and a bit too distant for even the longest telephotos were some Common Mergansers, over 100 Long-tailed Ducks, and, on one morning, a Pacific Loon was out in the bay. Moose are an all-but-sure bet around town - this one foraging at our hotel.
A Moose visits the Best Western (click to view larger)
On the way back to Anchorage I spotted a Dall Sheep foraging on a vertical wall that had been blasted away for the highway - a new mammalian species for me:
Dall Sheep along Alaska Highway 1 (click to view larger)
In between catnaps at the computer today I managed to look over most of the 1500+ images I made last week and can start cataloging them over the next few days. Once I get through that I plan to finish the entry I'd started on the Eagle Feeding Controversy that has been going on in Homer that led to the ordinace banning it beginning in June - stay tuned for that . . .