Saturday morning at the Eagle residence

I'd been checking on this nest for the last six weeks, hoping that any eaglets would eventually mature enough to show themselves above the rim of the nest. (I now know the parents had two, and both look healthy.) Then I needed to wait for a morning sun to properly illuminate at least one of the eaglets from where I position my camera (around 150 meters from the nest, on an elevated bicycle trail). Then I had to wait for a momentary lull in today's 50 km winds and take the image before afternoon temperatures heated the ground so much and distorted the atmosphere the camera wouldn't be able to achieve proper focus. So when one of the adults arrived with Saturday morning brunch and one of the kiddos popped up I quickly took fifty images. Why fifty? Because I'd forgotten to bring my reading glasses (they were back in the truck) and had to keep tweaking the OTA's focus control knob ever so slightly, hoping at least a few would turn out ok. This was the best of the bunch.

An ancient Olympus E-520 DSLR, Celestron SE4 Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) , Manfrotto tripod. F/13, ISO 1600, 1/1250th second. 10X50 binoculars to watch the nest for signs of eaglet activity.

Cropped slightly and sharpened.