Category: Wildlife

Meet 21 year old Golden Eagle, Julia.  Julia is another of the beautiful birds of prey that I had the privilege of seeing at the presentation by Bill Streeter of Delaware Valley Raptor Center earlier this month.  Julia was hit by a car and, as a result, is blind in her right eye and unable to fly.  Julia weighs 14 pounds and has feathers from the top of her head right to her toes, which is why Golden Eagles are also called Booted Eagles.  They are one of the most powerful eagles in the world and Julia is an exceptional ambassador of her species.

Meet Benson.  He is a gorgeous bald eagle that I “met” at a presentation by Bill Streeter of the Delaware Valley Raptor Center, Milford, Pa..  This beautiful creature was shot and rescued from the water by a brave man named “Benson”, thus the eagle was named after him.  Benson is unable to be returned to the wild due to his injuries but he is helping to educate as part of Bill Streeter’s presentation with live birds of prey.

As you may know, I enjoy watching the live video cams of nesting bald eagles as they nurture their babies.  One of my goals this year is to photograph more wildlife, especially birds and bald eagles.  I shot this image over the weekend as a bald eagle flew overhead in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  I love seeing them soar, barely flapping their wings. They are so elegant and majestic.  (Note – the sky in the original image was practically white so I added a background texture for interest.)

I was driving in Lancaster, Pa. and saw a flash of white flying above a nearby cemetery.  My initial thought was to wonder if it could be a snowy owl.  I had my camera gear in the car and pulled into the cemetery to try and get a better look.  Turns out it was not one, but two red tail hawks.  They were beautiful!  These were shot with my 70-200 mm lens plus a 1.4 extender.  I like the photo below where you get a view from the front of one and the other hawk is facing the opposite direction which lets us see the beautiful tail and coloring.

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This is a very busy mommy robin.  She had her first brood this Spring and I watched the two babies take their first flight in late June.  The nest was in the Yew bush right in front of my house and just about 6 feet from the ground.  This weekend I saw mommy robin back in the nest with her second brood of babies on the way.  She doesn’t mind me being in the yard, even mowing the grass.  But, if I walk over and talk to her, she squawks and flees the nest, keeping an eye on me from a nearby tree.  I added a nesting box to the front porch, hoping that it would be useful, but it looks as though this mommy likes the comforts of a familiar home. Below is a cell phone photo (terrible!) of one of the babies from the first brood after it flew from the nest for the first time.

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