I’ve been wondering for a while if Eleven Mile Canyon was closed for the Corona Virus and today I couldn’t stand it any longer. It was a beautiful sunny morning in southern Colorado and it would be a splendid morning to spend along the pristine headwaters of the South Platte River if I were fortunate to find it open. As I neared the entrance my optimism was growing… no big nasty CLOSED signs in sight! I arrived before the attendant unfortunately because I only had a ten dollar bill to pay the seven dollar entrance fee. Oh well… an extra three dollar donation for the park is a small price to pay for such splendor.
Along with me were my heavy tripod and four stop ND filter, but the water wasn’t
roaring as I expected so no long exposures with smooth water. There were some rapids, but not really anything worth getting out the four stop for. I drove slowly along the banks of the river looking for the most scenic spots but some of the best places were still in the shade and I was thinking that I would catch them on the return trip when the light was better. I explored some new locations and some new trails along with some fairly sketchy river bank access points. Saw some deer, some ducks a few geese and finally just as I was about to leave the park I spotted an eagles nest in the distance.
This was going to be worth a closer look so I parked Big Blue and attached the long lens to the camera to get a birds eye view… so to speak. Much to my surprise, there was a bald eagle on the nest with one chick occasionally popping his little head up to look around. The nest was a long way away though so I knew I was going to have to exercise some extraordinary care if I was going to get any kind of a usable picture. First I attached the 1.4 lens extender and the 100-400 lens to the camera and placed them on the tripod. Once I had that equipment set up it became clear that I was also going to need my shutter release cable in order to avoid camera shake when pushing the shutter button.
I also decided to use Live View with the extra zoom capability to accomplish the best 
possible manual focus and to lock up the mirror to avoid even the slightest vibration from mirror slap. The mama eagle moved around in the nest a bit, looking in every direction, something I would not have really been able to see at the extreme distance I had to settle for. There was no way to get closer with the river flowing in front of me so this is the best I could do! I was hoping mama would take flight so I watched the action for about an hour before giving up. Obviously I do not have the patience of a successful birder 🙁
As always, these images and more will be available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Also available with one of the many pictures available on my site are tons of cool gift items including coffee mugs, t-shirts, stationary, blankets and pillows, tech gadgets including battery chargers and phone cases and much much more!
