This Years Eagle Nest.

On Friday I headed out to Yakima to do some work for WA Fish and Wildlife.  The goal was to put a trail camera near a golden eagles nest.   This is the same thing we did last year on a nest of a different set of birds just down the valley.  There are some photos from that work here.  We did not know if the nest had chicks until we did the long drive on a terrible dirt road to get there.  Once there we found two chicks, and just as importantly, a nest that was not too difficult to get a camera mounted on.  I shot a couple of photos when I was down at the nest.  The female bird was on the nest when we got there, and decided to leave pretty quickly. 

 The two birds in the nest.  There is a piece of food next to them which is what is left of a blue grouse.

Please note that these photos are shot while working directly with the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife under funding from the Woodland Park Zoo.  There is no other reason to go to golden eagles nests since they are very easily disturbed.

One Month in the Life of Golden Eagles in the Nest.

 Last year I worked on a project with Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.  Part of this project involved putting up a wildlife camera on a golden eagles nest.  I have had the photos (all 7000 of them) on my computer ever since and finally decided to look through them and find some of the better ones.  I picked one from each day from when the camera was put up to the day the birds fledged.  It turned out to be almost exactly a month.  All of these photos are property of Wa Department of Fish and Wildlife and are not mine. 

 

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Bolivia: La Paz

Today was our second full day in La Paz and I figured I would upload some photos of the trip so far. La Paz is a huge city that I somewhat wary of coming to prior to the trip. After walking around the first day without any valuables on me I realized that this city is safe, very safe. Other than potentially getting killed by cars this city is great. I have certainly felt less safe in several American cities. So today I walked around with the camera. Fellow AAI Guide Danny Uhlman arrived this morning, and we spent much of the day walking around the sprawling markets that most of the locals use to buy everything they need.

Danny and Susan enjoying the walk. The people here are not very tall.
Typical street scene.
Most of the women have kids somewhere very close by. Here is a typical housewares market stall.

Susan navigating the market.
Danny
Danny buying some pears.

Three full generations of local women.
There are dogs everywhere here. They do not seem to be neglected and starving as in many other countries. The people here just love dogs.

Entertaining the locals.

Hey Danny, where the hell are we?

I now have a new belief about what animal has the cutest babies. We met this guy on our way to do some climbing. There is no question this is the cutest animal I have ever seen in my life.

Some human kids are cute also, but the llama still wins.
Unfortunately not everything in La Paz is cute or enjoyable. This next photo is of the river that runs through La Paz (mostly underground) and re-surfaces just outside of town. It is quite simply the most disgusting thing I have ever seen (smelled) in my life. The color and the smell make it clear that this water is mostly raw sewage.

Danny and I managed to find the La Paz rock climbing. In this photo I am climbing on some conglomerate rock of questionable quality. The climbing area is actually pretty good, although Danny and I both got our asses kicked a little by the altitude.

Thats it for now. There is lots more to come. We have one more day here in La Paz and then off to the mountains on Sunday for five days of trekking. Stay tuned for more photos.

Jessica and Matt's Wedding at Sleeping Lady Lodge.

This weekend I shot a wedding for my good friends Jessica and Matt. Here are a few shots that I promised I would post prior to leaving for Bolivia in about 12 hours. This is just a selection of shots from the wedding and there are many more good shots. There is also no real order to these photos. I will sort through these as soon as I get a chance.

Thanks for a great weekend guys!

Golden Eagle Nest Photos.

Yesterday I went out to install a camera on a golden eagle nest. There were two chicks and a mother bird sitting in the nest when I rappelled down to the nest. Unfortunately I was not able to get a shot of the momma bird sitting in the nest due to an extremely agitated rattlesnake who I was trying to get past on the way to the nest. Once I got to the nest the two chicks did not present themselves as very good photo subjects, but I did manage to get a couple of photos.

This is the camera set up to look at the nest. Working at golden eagle nests is very difficult due to the location which is often at the base of small overhanging rock areas. This was the second nest I tried to get to, the first one failed due to a large loose block that I was not willing to try and climb past.