A new year of photography is off to a great start with the birds of Eleven Mile Canyon in Southern Colorado. The bald eagles are back in the canyon, red-winged blackbirds are migrating, and I saw a northern shrike hunting in the meadow.
I was fortunate to find this northern shrike hunting in the open meadow near the river. Unfortunately, I mistook him for a common chickadee and didn’t stay long enough to observe the hunt. These little unassuming fellows are actually quite fierce hunters, and it would have been nice to see him in action!
It was difficult to see from the road, but this was actually a flock of red-wings on a stopover from their annual migration. We’ve had a shortage of red-wings the last couple of years, so hopefully this is a good sign that their numbers are recovering!
On our second trip through the canyon, we spotted this rather surly looking bald eagle staring down at us. Fortunately, he stayed around for a few portraits before flying upstream for a quieter place to hunt for trout.
Luckily I was ready when he finally took flight, and I was able to capture this image of him spreading his wings. I was only using a shutter speed of a 1600th of a second to try to bring in more light, so I was taking a chance of ruining the image with motion blur, but it looks like this one turned out!
This one did have a bit of motion blur, but it looks like Topaz sharpening pulled an image out of the hat.
Here are a few more of my favorite images from the day, hope you enjoy!
Steven W. Krull is a renowned photographer and author who has been photographing and writing of the beauty and wildlife of the Colorado Rocky Mountains for over two decades. Please visit his website at S.W. Krull Imaging to view his work, including thousands of prints for sale, stock images for commercial use, and his library of published books.
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Colorado Photographer / Author / Wildlife Advocate | Steven W. Krull 