The Golden Eagles in Västerbotten

I’m going away on the last photo trip this Sunday and now I am hoping of capturing the Golden Eagle in the wild. The trip will take me to the north of Sweden and to the hide that wildlife photographer Conny Lundström has there. I started to investigate the opportunities to photo the Golden Eagle in Scandinavia last year and I think that Connys place is one of the best. Now this doesn´t mean that I will get the opportunity to take photos because they are wild birds and I am going to be there just at the start of the season.

I choose this time of year with different aspects in mind. There will hopefully be lovely autumn colors but still possibility to get snow fall. Snow is good because it brightens up the scene but it can also be annoying if you get blown out highlights. I will have to check the histogram once in a while to see that I am using the correct settings. I would recommend every photographer to use the histogram to really see what the different settings do for the pictures they take. The last forecast I looked at was both good and bad but the forecast will certainly change before I get there.

The White-tailed Eagle is the Eagle with the greatest wingspan. This picture was taken, together with the feature picture, in August at Hullsjön here in Sweden. So none of the pictures here is of a Golden Eagle.

The great thing about this trip is that it is the starting point for a new photo mission that I have set myself. I want to take pictures of three types of Eagles this winter. The Golden Eagle is the first. The Imperial Eagle and the White-tailed Eagle is the second and third and I will travel to Hungary for the second part of the mission in February next year. My pictures of the Barn Owl and the first picture of the Red-footed Falcon is actually just where the Eagle photography in Hungary will be. The place seems to be perfect but I need to be fortunate if I am going to get the desired photos of the Imperial Eagle because they are shy and it needs to be a tough winter for them to appear.

I will have the pleasure that Arne Bivrin will tag along on the trip to Hungary. He is a great Swedish photographer and you can look at some of his picture on his own page. Hopefully we’ll be able to spur each other to take some great photos.