Day two in Eagle country

I woke up at 4:00 am this morning to eat breakfast and then headed out to the Eagle hide here in Kalvträsk. The forecast for today was mixed with both snow and sun during the day. I think it’s good to get mixed conditions and not just have one type of weather over a series of days.

The start of the day was cloudy, with snowfall, and that would hopefully bring the Golden Eagle pair to the site. This was our hope for the day when we arrived at the Eagle hide and rigged our gear. The Eagle hide must be one of the best, if not the best, built hide I have used. There are just some small things that could have been better. Most of them are more or less all related to me being tall.

When I now look back at the events of the day I must say that we were lucky. Sadly also unlucky as so much great light were wasted without any Eagles. They visited the site twice during the morning when the light was at the poorest. I did manage to get a couple photos, but they are not any award winning even if I like this photo.

This is from the second visit of the day. It show one of the Eagles flying over the landscape with Vitbergen Nature Reserve as background. I like this type of pictures and have decided that I must start working on extending my portfolio with these type of picture. Sadly many people just strive to get the close-ups that “remove” the subject from its true habitat.

Early morning visit by the male Golden Eagle

The second picture is from the first visit of the day. The male Golden Eagle got down at one of the food caches and tried to convince the female to join by shrieking. It didn’t work and soon afterwards the both flew off.

I did say we were both lucky and unlucky during the day. We had poor light when the Eagles where at the site, but we also got lucky and witnessed a mating. This was one of the reasons why I went here this time of year. Sadly I couldn´t get any good photos of the event. This wasn´t the only luck today as we had patches with great light coupled with the light snowfall that made a perfect setting for my photos of the other birds. We also witnessed a Northern Goshawk trying to get out to food but it didn´t land. I do feel that we will get lucky tomorrow with the Golden Eagles, hopefully also the Goshawk.

Here are links to the two other days here in Kalvträsk.

Day 1
Day 3