The Bald Eagles of Llano

As a lot of people in central Texas are aware, there is has been a nesting pair of  Bald Eagles residing about seven miles outside of town annually for the last approximately eleven years or.  The traffic would get tied up frequently along the highway by people wanting to view then, so the Texas Highway Department graded an area along the road to allow parking.  It has been a popular spot through the years for bird watchers and photographers.

Earlier this year the huge nest was blown down in a storm.  Those nests are huge, weighing up to a ton, so that was quite a loss for the eagles.  So, the last report that I have, the pair have returned and are now building a new nest in the same area.  The average size of a nest is somewhere around 9 feet by 12 feet, and weighs over a ton.  By the way, the Bald Eagle usually mate for life, but if one dies, the other may look to find another mate.

I haven’t been down there for several years.  The first time was in February of 2008 when I got these photos.  I dug them out of my archives and reprocessed them.  The nest was about 300 yards from the viewing area.  I had my Canon 500mm f4 lens with a 1.4 teleconverter, making it a 700mm, and still the original images show the eagles as far in the distance.  Just a tiny spot  in the middle of the original photo.  So these pictures are drastically cropped.

I believe that the next three pictures were taken at the original nest.  First photo is the image before I cropped them.  Remember, this is how it looked through my 700mm lens.

Original view of Bald Eagle nest.

Pair of Bald Eagles on nest in early morning sun.

Bald Eagle leaving nest.

Those were the only good photos that I could make good enough to post here.

We went back in October of 2008, and they were back and had built another nest, not far from the original.  Only one bird was on the nest then.  Again here is the original, followed by the cropped version.

Original Eagle on nest

You can see in the above photo the immense size of their nest.

Bald Eagle on nest

That was the only photo that I have from that day that I considered not a throw-away.  By the way, I believe that it is this nest that was destroyed this year by the storm.

Llano is about 200 miles distant from here in San Angelo, so I don’t get down there very often.  But they are the closest opportunity that I have to see a Bald Eagle.

With my new Canon EOS 7D Mark II and my Tamron 150-600mm lens, I feel that I may get some nice images if I can get back down there.  We will see.