Photographing A Bald Eagle Nest

 I've been looking forward to this for a while now. I had heard about an eagle's nest in Arlington for a long time. Multiple people I had chatted with told me about it. The first one to tell me about it was photographer Halee Day Burg. A few days ago, I finally committed, and we drove to Arlington. Ive been asked not to post the location of the nest, so the narrowest i'll get is that they are somewhere in the Mystic River Watershed. There are lots of other rules for photographers at the location, for example, from 10am to 5pm, the adults are the most active, and all photographers have to leave. This rule makes a lot of sense, since bald eagles are a threatened species, and are protected under the Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle Protection Act. 

The bald eagle has made a huge recovery though. Back when DDT was in use, in and other food poisoning caused the eagle's eggshells to be very fragile, and they would crack underneath the weight of the bird. People would also hunt the birds, and trap them. When they were listed as an endangered species, and fledglings were introduced from Canada into the quabbin reservoir, they re-claimed Massachusetts.

I arrived at the location at around 7:00am. The nest was very obvious, as it was about the size of a car. A pine tree held the nest, and the two big brown eaglets. There were maybe 6 people already there. Every time there was movement in the nest, or a eaglet got into a good angle, I heard everyone's cameras shutter. I zoomed my Canon Rebel T3's 18-400 lens in as much as it would go. We had to maintain 300 feet from the nest, and 90 feet away from a perched adult. For at least the first 10 minutes, it was just the two siblings:

All bald eagles are given leg bands by Mass Wildlife not long after birth, and while i'm not sure what leg bands the chicks have, I know the moms "Name" is MK, and the dad's name is KZ. Not long after I started  taking shots of the eaglets, somebody pointed out an adult, carrying in with what we think was a piece of rabbit...

MK stood on the nest for a minute, letting the chicks scream with excitement, but she must have decided she wanted breakfast, because she took off again with it, and brought it to a hawthorn branch, which she then left after being mobbed by a blue jay. She flew out of sight with the meat still in her talons.

...there was a pause for a few minutes, and then another adult came in with unidentified meat/fish. It set the meat down and the other adult landed with something too. The whole family was in the nest.

...The chicks finally had their meal. Eventually, One of the adults dove off the nest and flew to a pine next to the lake. Everybody started leaving. I still couldn't believe that I had just seen a bald eagle nest. We went on to photograph all the different birds that were feeding on herring and other food at a local dam:

                                                                         Wood Duck Family

                                                              Black Crowned Night Heron 

                                                       Wood Duck Mom Left Her Ducklings

                                                              to Preen On Top Of The Dam

                                                                   Double Crested Cormorant

                               

Herring Gull (the only successful bird during the hour that we watched them)

 

And then we went home. That was probably my most interesting day of bird photography ever.