Photographs by Frank

31 January 2014

Conowingo Dam

Filed under: Birds,Winter — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 7:00 PM

This past Monday morning, Joan and I pointed the car south and headed to Maryland. Photographically, our destination was the Conowingo Dam. We also visited Katrina (our daughter) in Baltimore as well as my sister and her family and my parents, all of whom live in suburban Washington. We arrived back home early yesterday evening.

The Conowingo Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna River just north of where the river enters the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace. The dam is ‘famous’ for the birds, especially bald eagles, which hang out there in the winter. The Harford Bird Club maintains the Conowingo Dam Site Guide with much useful information about the site.

We intended to arrive at the dam early enough on Monday afternoon to get in some photography then. However, complications of the dental kind conspired against us and we did not arrive until dusk. We spent a short while reconnoitering the dam and its environs before before heading off in search of dinner and a motel.

We were back at the dam a bit before 9 on Tuesday morning. The temperature was about 10 degrees and there was an intermittent breeze blowing… so much for heading south! Dressed appropriately things were not bad as long as the wind was not blowing. Conditions were good for photography with a light overcast diffusing the sunlight. We arrived at the tail end of a release of water from the dam and the concomitant flurry of activity.

Although we stayed until after 1 PM, we did not see another release. Thus, although there were plenty of birds around the action was somewhat subdued.

Here are the results:

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3 December 2013

Bald Eagles in Peterborough

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Winter — Tags: , — Frank @ 4:42 PM

At 12:45 this afternoon, the phone rang. It was my CWS* calling with news that she was pulled of to the side of US 202 in Peterborough (just north of the EMS store) and that she was watching a pair of bald eagles (an adult and a juvenile).

Of course, I decided that the fire wood I was in the process of hauling inside could wait and immediately headed off in the truck, with “Big Bertha”  on the passenger seat, to meet the CWS. I arrived on the scene about 20 or 25 minutes after answering the phone. I was half expecting a call during my drive saying that the birds had flown but they were still there when I arrived.

I was able to make eleven exposures (in just over three minutes) before the birds took off. I had the camera packed up and was back in the truck at 1:30.

Joan also observed a second juvenile fly low across the road between her phone call and my arrival.

If you look very closely at the second photo you can discern why the bird had assumed this pose.

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*CWS… chief wildlife spotter; AKA,  my wife, Joan.


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