Tim Lester Images Monthly Update
First of off, welcome to 2010 – hopefully this year will be good to everyone. 2009 was very challenging from the beginning and stressful at times. My wildlife and landscape images were very well received and I had the opportunity to talk to a half dozen groups about taking photographs, including one talk for an annual group gathering.
This email update will occur once a month and let you know of current events and what I have been shooting lately. My gift to you will be a desktop calendar for you to use on your computer with a different image each month, included will be details about the subject and location of the image.
This month’s image is of our national symbol – the Bald Eagle. I believe you can see the bald eagle in every state except for Hawaii, mostly in the winter depending on where you live. In Illinois, we have one of the largest concentrations of bald eagles of any state in the lower 48 during the winter. Within the state of Illinois, including the middle Mississippi River valley, we regularly have over 2500 bald eagles feeding along our rivers and waterways from December to March and from my experiences January is the best month to see them in the Central Illinois area. There are a few nesting pairs that are in Illinois year round, so if you live in the state you should be able to see an eagle any time of year.
A few tips for viewing eagles – stay in your car, it is warmer and you will not spook the eagle if you get close. If you leave your vehicle, remember it’s cold and even colder near a body of water and the wind chills get to single digit or negative values real quick. Use binoculars or spotting scope, most bald eagles don’t want to be near humans so they are usually across the water from cars and humans. Short trips to parks, boat marinas and lock and dams provide wonderful chances for seeing these great birds. Some lock and dams and/or parks even provide viewing platforms, spotting scopes and educational weekends to learn more about the eagles. Keep your eyes open and look around, you never know when an eagle will fly from behind you or land in a nearby tree. Do not walk toward an eagle directly, usually an eagle is sitting in a tree to conserve energy and please don’t attempt to approach a nest. One word of warning, if an eagle is in a tree above you and the bird rai ses it’s tail you should prepare for a bomb to be falling shortly – like most birds they will lighten their load before taking off. Taking pictures of bald eagles can be difficult, mainly due to the cold temperatures and the distance between you and the eagle. Usually you will need at least a 300mm lens to capture an image and if you are looking to produce images that you can print greater than 8x10 you should be looking at a lens 500mm or longer.
The adult bald eagle in the image was taken in January of 2009 along the Mississippi River at Lock and Dam 18 near Gladstone IL. The image was shot at 600mm while the eagle was heading to a tree to eat the fish it had captured. I have been out twice so far this year, once along the Illinois River – located 3 near North Pekin and a trip to Lock and Dam 18 where there were around 75. I normally make the trip over to Lock and Dam 18 since you can usually find a few hundred at any one time, for some reason the numbers are down this year.
Sorry for the long message but I love seeing bald eagles in the wild, it never get’s old to watch these birds and hearing them call out is a real treat – so plan a next trip over the next few weeks and spend some time watching our national bird in action. Did I mention to dress warm?
Here’s a link to download the appropriate version for your desktop, one for standard screens and one for widescreens. Right click on the text for the format you need and select Save As, save to a location on your computer that you can remember and change the background as needed for your OS.
http://www.timlesterimages.com/calendar/january.html
Enjoy.
Tim
Tim Lester 10129 North Voorhees Road Edwards, IL 61528
Phone - 309-243-9280
Webpage - www.timlesterimages.com
Additional Images - www.flickr.com/photos/timlester
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This list will provide monthly email updates with news and upcoming events. Also includes a link to our custom monthly desktop calendar with information about the image.
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