Welcome to February or if you live in Central Illinois, welcome to spring?? As I type this, it's January 31st and 60 degrees ABOVE 0 outside! Spring is coming soon or it's going to be a really long time until summer - not sure which.

I received numerous comments regarding my eagle image from last month, keep those comments coming - good or bad as I like to hear what people like or dislike about my images. One common theme in the comments is related to how great it must be going out and shooting these wonderful birds, so I thought I would share my recent eagle adventures with everyone. I decided one day to travel and shoot some images of bald eagles on the following day - got up at 4:30am and forecast was for freezing rain, possible snow and icy roads with cloudy skies all day. Canceled the trip and took care some of image processing that needed to be done for a client.

Decided to watch the weather and try again, found a forecast for a clear day and try again. There was not much hope the night before as it was snowing most of the night, got up at 5:00am and there were clear skies and not much snow accumulation from the night before. Camera gear was ready, so I packed the 2 bags of equipment, monopod and tripod and off I went - took breakfast with me to eat on the drive. Roads were very slick and icy in spots, posted speed limit on the Interstate was not an option. The location I had chosen is one that I always get some good images but this trip I had some specific shots that I needed for my collection. I also wanted to work out some kinks with a new camera I purchased, the focusing system is completely new and previous events were hit and miss for good images, so I decided to take some time and learn while changing settings to obtain great images.

First problem, slick roads delayed my arrival time until a half hour after sunrise - sunrise is a great time to obtain images of eagles feeding. Second problem, the observation platform that I normally shoot from was not accessible due to some construction going on in the area - road closed. Not a problem, came up with a plan B and was shooting along the river front about an hour after sunrise. Shooting along the river is not warm, it's cold when the wind is blowing across the water and I left my heavy gloves in the car about 1/2 mile away. After 2 hours my hands starting getting very cold and I needed to warm up. While warming up I decided to drive around the area a little and watch the patterns the bald eagles were flying and figure out the best location to shoot from. I chose a location I had not shot from before, inside a group of trees with an open area between another set of trees. This vantage point offered me some cover so the eagles would not see me as quickly but also gave me a short time to capture images of them in the open area.

So now it's around 11:00am, so I head to grab some lunch and make a plan for the remainder of the day. So a quick stop at Subway and off I go to my next location with food in hand, eating in takes too much time. My plan was to head to the other side of the river to shoot for the remainder of the day, so the wind was to my back while shooting. For the next hour I drive looking for additional bald eagles, I see one in three stops along the way to my final stop of the day. So I continue my driving and at my final stop there are about five bald eagles, I guess I made a mistake in leaving the first location and now it's 2:00pm - not really a good time to head back. For those wondering, there were around 150 eagles at stop one with an average of 35 flying around during the time I spent there. Now at the new location, there are two eagles sitting in tree's nearby, so I decide to capture an image of one flying out of the tree - that shouldn't be long. Wrong again, after watching eagl e one for 1.5 hours it only moved slightly in the tree to an area that I could not capture it jumping off the branch. By watching, I mean camera set and focus preset to a location that I believe the eagle with fly, with a remote trigger connected to the camera - sitting there waiting to hit the button when I first notice movement. After nearly 4 hours this eagle never left the tree! I did give up after the first 1.5 hours on eagle one and moved over to the eagle two, within 5 minutes that eagle flew off but I miscalculated the focus location so not any real usable images.

For the remainder of my time, I was waiting for eagles to fly around and attempt to catch fish. There was only one eagle that took flight looking for fish during this time, it saw nothing and returned to a tree off in the distance. While waiting I did talk with numerous other photographers from other states that had left home at similar times in the morning, but they spent their entire day in this location. There was also a group on a field trip from a Chicago photography store, overall they were happy since they don't normally see bald eagles in their area. I kept quiet about my morning visit. Near the end of the day clouds started moving in and the light quickly started to fade, so it was time to head for home and eating my left over lunch. In total, I traveled 275 miles over a 14 hour period and looked for eagles in 4 locations. If that sounds like fun to you, let me know and you can go with me next time!

Now let's talk about this month's images, the first image is from Bryce Canyon National Park from my trip out West a few months ago, it has 'The Sentinel' feature in the left side of the image with some interesting hoodoos on the right side. This was shot from the Sunset Point area, ironically shortly after sunrise. About 3 weeks after my visit the area was hit with a snow storm that dropped about 12 inches of snow.

The second image is from a recent Peoria Rivermen hockey game versus the Milwaukee Admirals. While the Peoria goalie Jake Allen (34) makes one of his 33 saves on the night, Milwaukke players J.Puustinen (71) and B.Geoffrion (5) look on, Peoria players A.Nigro (24 - hidden behind Puustinen) and M.Cundari (15) keep their opponents away from the puck. I would like to say I caught Allen closing his eyes during the shot, but I know from watching professional hockey players that it's really a blink.

Here's a link to download the appropriate version of this month's image for your desktop, one for standard screens and one for wide-screens. Right click on the text or image 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/february.html

Tim

Tim Lester 10129 North Voorhees Road Edwards, IL 61528

Phone - 309-243-9280

Webpage - http://www.timlesterimages.com

Additional Images - http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlester and http://www.sportsshooter.com/timlester

Shop - http://prints.timlesterimages.com