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This page is excerpted from the slower-loading January 09 Journal Page,
which has many more winter bird images and stories.  The current Journal is always here.  

Bald Eagle at White Rock Lake January 27, 2009

Tree Lump I

Too cold to photograph birds today. Way too cold. So I bundled five layers light and drove to the lake. At the top of Winfrey I looked down and all around, as usual. Carefully, ever hopeful. Eventually, I saw a lump on the top of a distant tree off to the left.

Tree Lump B

This full frame is as close as I got with my 750 mm (in 35mm equivalence) telephoto — not close enough for good detail, but this is a special case. The rest of today's photos are enlarged greatly from this approximate framing.

Our Friend, a Bald Eagle

When I saw the white head at that significant distance, I immediately thought eagle. Big, puffed out eagle in the cold. Then I remembered our friendly neighborhood Osprey, that I'd hoped to keep seeing. It looked enough like that that it might have been, and it was certainly more likely it were an Osrey than a Bald Eagle, so I settled on calling it Osprey for about a week.

Then, a reader emailed saying that someone on the Dallas Audubon Bird Chat had seen a Bald Eagle in the Old Fish Hatchery area Anna dubbed "The Fitchery," and that I should recheck my I.D of what I had called Osprey. So I looked at photos and drawings of Ospreys and Eagles, and I went back to what I had originally thought, but I couldn't believe.

In fact, I still have difficulty thinking that what I shot that cold day was a Bald Eagle. I was really excited for a couple days, and now I'm in a disoriented state of belief mixed with disbelief.

This is the best of the day's shots for identification or detail (not much), although some of the other shots are also informative about other parts. Note the side of this bird's face. Ospreys have a dark stripe back from its eye, level with its beak. This one doesn't, but two of my January 20 Osprey photographs do. So I was right about that sighting, and initially so wrong about this one.

Wow. A Bald Eagle at White Rock Lake!

Special thanks to reader Dana for emailing me about my error.

Bald Eagle Wing Stretch

My vision of the Bald Eagle was brief, only a few seconds. Almost as soon as I started shooting out of Blue's window, the bird decided it needed to be somewhere else, perhaps more secluded. Apparently it has managed to stay away from prying birder eyes for at least a week — from my photographs January 27 to Wayne Cherry's sighting in the Fitchery February 2.

I'm pretty sure the eagle didn't see me, since there were at least three other cars in the hilltop parking lot, and they'd been there awhile, engines running because it was so cold. So cold, in fact, I'm wondering if our white-tail-feathered friend came down in the big Blue Norther that brought us that cold, cold weather — hitching a ride on a big wind as migratory birds often do.

Bald Eagle Airborne

Hardly anyone was walking around the lake that day. I only saw maybe seven cars total. And five humans walking or running, three die-hard runners (oddly enough fully dressed) and one bundled-up couple who got out of their car laughing, walked down the slope about forty feet, then came scuffling back in a big, cold hurry.

Full Wing Extension

Osprey's wingspans are 4.5 to 6 feet. By comparison, an American White Pelican's wingspan is up to 9 feet. A Bald Eagle's is 5.5 to 8 feet; and a California Condor's is an inch longer than a pelican in some books, equal in others.

Big Bird Flies Away

At first I thought this shot was just too much — a big, poofed-out in the cold bird showing mostly its rear end. That's when I thought it was just an Osprey. Now that I know it's a Bald Eagle, why not?

Sayonara, Baldie

Then it was gone. I walked all around Winfrey hoping to find it in another tree, but I saw no more big bird bumps that day. This photo series started at 3:17:02 pm Tuesday January 27, 2009 and ended at 3:17:16.

Elapsed time 14 seconds. Or maybe I might have got better photographs.

 

Always more birds (but not as many eagles) on The Current Journal page.

Have you seen Nature, the public TV show's longish vid of Bald Eagles? It's gorgeous.

Check out our newly updated White Rock Lake Map for exact loctions mentioned on this page.

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