Eagles and seagulls

Early morning on the Mississippi

This morning I got up and bundled up in clothing and headed out to Fort Madison around 6:30 to see if the Eagles were out. WOW- when I got there they were everywhere along with the playful seagulls. So I got my camera ready and started shooting. They were all lined up here. All I had to do is wait for them to start flying around and roosting.

In the meantime I spotted the seagulls. They are very

interesting to observe. This one was like he was posing for me. I changed the tone on this to sepia.

It looks they are starting to move around a little. Here are three all trying to claim the piece of tree.

I looked up and noticed this Eagle sitting there watching the water for breakfast.This one isn't in focus to good. I am shaking so bad it is only 20 degrees. Maybe I should have bundled up more :) Ok I'm going to get in the car and warm up before taking more.

Now I am warmer and the sun is trying to come up through the clouds. It is now 7:20am I caught this seagull in action swooping pretty close to me.
Here comes a big Eagle flying right in front of me. His wings in the air and head in the wind.

The Eagle has landed.

I will post all of these in the slideshow titled morning at the Mississippi ! Way to many to sit and add on here. I hope you have enjoyed them. Please sign up for a Google account - it is free then you can comment on my pictures. More to come next week. have a great weekend.

I had to put this one last one on here. It is my favorite. This is getting pretty close to the Eagle.

My day.......

A day in the life of an aspiring photographer..........

This is a picture taken while driving down the road,leaving home to set out on what I hoped would be an adventurous day of taking Eagle pictures.

This was taken while driving through West Point - the roads are almost clear.

Well when we got here the Eagles didn't cooperate very well. As you can see above,they were flying so high and my new zoom lens had not came in yet. Instead of wasting the day out Rick decided to walk on the Mississippi river.It scared me to death him walking out there I didn't care if it was frozen! But I did see a photo op ! As you can see he didn't go far. If you look to the right you can see what I did- breaks in the ice. That was enough on the river I was ready to move on down the road.

We went on down the road to this little old one room school house called Galland School. It is hard to believe that back in the days they held school in this small of a building. The school is located in between Montrose and Keokuk. Our day was coming to an end and our bellies were growling so back to the house we go.

The snow may be a bad thing in Iowa ( or at least for me ) but the sunsets here are absolutely beautiful. I had to get out and play with me new filters I got for my camera and here are a few shots I came up with.

This picture is taken with a polarized filter. It has added a nice tone to the sky and helps reduce glare. As you can see the sun is setting fast. Now for some darker pictures.

This is pretty dark but I loved the way it turned out. This is a huge Maple tree in our yard. I cheated a little and took it from the living room .( notice the reflection of the flash )

Now the moon has came out and my day is almost at an end. This was also taken from my cozy,warm living room. I had to play around with this in photoshop . I wanted the moon to come blasting in through a purple sky with the silhouettes of the trees.
The day is over but I just couldn't put the camera down. I looked around the living room and thought,hummmm this antler chandelier will make a nice ending to my day. So here it is - the last one for now. Can you tell I love my camera ? It will take allot of playing around and driving to get as good as I want to be. Just think when I go on vacation - look out ,especially when I go back home to the beautiful hills of Tennessee. Now there will be some great picture taking.

Oh yeah - did I tell you how much Rick is not liking the whole posing thing.

Portraits

Welcome 2008

I wanted to take a minute to reflect over 2007. It was a great year that started out with a temperature of 90 degrees on our vacation to Punta Cana

and ended with a chilling 13 degrees and 5" of fresh snow at home in Iowa.

Here are a few highlights of 2007- The first and far most important is that my family's all well, I had several vacations - a vacation to the Dominican Republic in Jan. with my boyfriend,sister and brother-in-law,a vacation to Tennessee to visit my family, a vacation to New York tto visit Rick's family,a freind of mine at work introduced me to this blogging stuff ( thanks Deb http://iowa3chances.blogspot.com/ , by the way her highlight would be that she INVENTED dining stones check out more on the web at http://www.diningstones.com/ ), I reconnected with friends from highschool on myspace, I bought my first DSLR camera and had a great holiday season with family and friends. Speaking of the holiday season here's a few pictures of what it looks like when you get the 30 of us together at Christmas. I hope 2008 has many "Reflected Memories."

I haven't been out yet to take pictures of the beautiful white blanket we have but plan on doing so this week. There's a town on the Mississippi River that the Eagles flock to in the winter months. I'm going to be taking pictures there so keep your eyes on my blog to see the powerful birds:) This picture was taken there last year.

Keep your eyes on my blog, winter pictures will be posted soon.

Glory to God in highest heaven,

Who unto man His Son hath given;

While angels sing with tender mirth,

A glad new year to all the earth.~Martin Luther