I certainly got an early Christmas present by being able to see our beautiful Redding eagles on top of the Christmas Tree this morning...













Rain is coming in tomorrow so I won't make it down there, but I am off for Christmas Break from school right now so I still have another week where I can ride my bike down there each morning and see if I can find our eagles!

Night night!

I just love the different color variations that bald eagles go through in their first five to six years before becoming full adults. I find it thrilling to see the five year birds like you have photographed, Terri, because it shows that they have survived the first five years of life which is so hard for eagles to do. As you probably know, the majority of eagles that come into O.W.L. for rehabilitation are juvies.

I agree Karen, I do love the variations on the young eagles! And, that's a good point about seeing the 5 year olds & how rough it is for them to make it that long in the wild!

I was treated to another nice sighting of the 5 year old "Liberty look-alike" eagle on Saturday morning! It was on Liberty's Island and this is the first time I've been able to photograph an eagle on that perch & around the Turtle Bay area with my newer camera and lens! I've had this camera & lens for over a year now but just didn't get that many opportunities to use it last year with them moving down to the Riverview nest! That is a pretty close vantage point and with a 600mm lens I was able to get some of my best shots ever of the sub adult landing in a tree! You will love it Karen because you can see all of the markings underneath it's wings and on it's body! It even has the same shaped notch as Liberty!

Now, at one point I saw the sub adult look up & start calling, and sure enough one of the other youngens flew over it's head! So, the sub adult took off and chased the immature eagle toward Family Tree...

Here is the closest shot I got of the immature eagle before it got chased off by the sub adult eagle...






Here is the sub adult landing back on Liberty's Island...