Tag Archives: eagle watching

bird watching, Starved Rock State Park

Blurry Eagle

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Steve and I drove through starved rock state park in the snow storm today (yes, it was too beautiful yesterday to last- we all knew the snow was coming back!) anyway, finally got a few shots of a bald eagle in flight. Not the best shots- still kind of shaky with the long lenses- but I finally got pictures that you can actually see that it is an eagle! (Here was my first attempt at an eagle a few years back)

bird watching, Starved Rock State Park

Young Baldy

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Took a drive through Starved Rock State Park yesterday to look for bald eagles. Only saw a few here and there along the Illinois river. Some were flying, some were perched in the bare trees over the water. This one, a juvenile, was sitting in the snow picking at what might have been a fish.

Did you know it takes five years before a bald eagle gets it’s white plumage?

bird watching, Starved Rock State Park

Eagles at Starved Rock

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Every winter the bald eagles congregate at the Lock and Dam on the Illinois River
at Starved Rock State Park, Utica, IL
Our Point of view is from the observation deck at the visitor center.
 It’s hard to see them in the sky here because I don’t have a telephoto lens for my new camera~ yet 🙂
 and if you look closely, there are around thirty eagles in the distant trees on the edge of Plum Island here.
 the eagles, and about a million seagulls, swarm at the back of the dam,
scooping up the stunned fish that go through the dam.
 One eagle had the good graces to land in the snow at the edge of the lock.
(still wish I had that telephoto lens)

 

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 reflection of the winter sun in the lock
 
 Seagull in flight over the lock
 the committee at the gates (lock gate)
They sat there the whole time we were there….
even when a barge came into the lock.