Eagle Pictures

Both Linda and Mike have a fascination with eagles, and especially bald eagles that are so prevalent in the northern part of our hemisphere. We have enjoyed seeing them in the wilds of Alaska, British Columbia, and in Oregon and Washington.

We have visited places where injured eagles are cared for, and, when possible, set free to once again roam in their majestic way. We have seen them from a jet boat on the Rogue River in Oregon, and we learned to spot them resting in a tree. And, on our recent trip to British Columbia, Linda was able to get quite "up close and personal" with 28 bald eagles.

While we were in Prince Rupert, we drove down by the water front and just happened to see a large group of bald eagles (we later counted 28 of them) who seemed to be interested in something in the water. We quickly got out our cameras and started snapping away. As we wandered down the shore line toward where the birds seemed to be congregating, we saw "Chummin' Chuck" (our term for this fellow), a local photographer who also loved eagles. He was throwing meat scraps into the water to attract the bald eagles for his pictures. When he discovered that he and Linda had the same model of camera, they became fast friends, and Linda was treated to a thorough lesson on the use of her camera.

Linda was able to get some phenomenal shots of bald eagles in the air and retrieving the meat scraps from the water. Our fondest memory is of Linda, using her 48x digital zoom capability getting a wonderful picture of a bald eagle soaring through the sky—but we still laugh about her ducking out of the way, even though the eagle was more than 100 feet away!

We were somewhat surprised to later see that only one eagle remained near the wharf after Chummin' Chuck had departed for the day. However, for us, our timing couldn't have been better—and we witnessed something that will forever be a fond memory for both of us.