bald eagle

I've been aching for a bald eagle photo for years now - they're so rare, so powerful and so beautiful, but the few times I have seen one they were either too far away, or I didn't have my camera. Not this time. After a few days in the Mt. Lassen area, I was driving home on Highway 36 and just happened to glance over to see this massive eagle perched towards the top of a tall tree. To my good fortune, there was a perfect place to pull the car over and grab my camera. It was still quite far off in the distance, but I had my biggest lens with me to provide some range, and improved my odds by crawling under a barbed wire fence to get closer. Photographer's liberties. I was insanely excited just seeing and photographing this beautiful eagle, but to sweeten the pot even more, there was also a baby inside the nest. During such a complicated time in the world, I feel incredibly grateful to have captured this simple scene.

​"May you soar on eagle wings, high above the madness of the world."
-Jonathan Lockwood Huie