Bald Eagle in flight flew right over me during sunset at Barr Lake State Park in Brighton, Colorado.
This unique state park has been known as a premier bird-watching area. A trail circles the lake offering prime viewing with a boardwalk that stretches out over the lake. When I learned there were bald eagles in Colorado, I didn’t believe it at first and I never dreamed of getting a shot like this on my first visit there.
Believe it or not I have a hard time adventuring outside of my comfort zone sometimes and trying to explore new places. I am sure glad I took the opportunity to check out Barr Lake State Park as it had hundreds of bald eagles at this time when I visited.
This was taken with my Canon 90D which has an APS-C 1.6x factor crop sensor shot with my EF100-400mm with a 1.4x teleconverter. Not the huge lenses many of the photographers had there but plenty of reach. Full disclosure though this image is a composite since the initial shot was taken against the blue sky. I turned around and took the sunset with the eagles’ nest and the Rocky Mountains in the background and created this composite from the two images taken that same day.
It was cold and there were still plenty of other photographers out on the boardwalk. It was a bit intimidating as they had a lot of equipment with them and these huge professional lenses, and here I was with my little telephoto lens and not even a full frame camera at that time. I had to laugh when this eagle flew over us and one of the other photographers shouted out, “Nope, too much lens”. Yet, I managed to capture the shot wing tip to wing tip in the frame.
I now have a full frame Canon R5 mirrorless camera, and I blame this shot for getting me hooked and wanting to upgrade my equipment. I have gone back to this location every year since and have yet to get anything close to this spectacular shot.
It is an amazing experience to watch these large bald eagles fishing over the lake. It is the challenge to capture an image as they snatch a fish up that keeps the adrenaline going even in the cold weather. Even though there have been less bald eagles over the years I will keep going back due to this memorable experience during my first visit there.
Bald Eagle Sunset
- 560mm 1/2000sec at f/8.0, Ieagles’sss0
- 2163 x 1443 3x2 ratio cropped composite
- Barr Lake State Park
- Brighton, Colorado
- February 1, 2020, 4:25p
