Eagles on the Fox River on Sunday

Sunday we went down to the Fox River to see if there were any eagles in the area.

I was showing Ron and Andy some of the places I have been stopping to photograph them.

We were on the west side of the river when Andy said he saw one. As we backed up to check it out, we saw an eagle swoop down and a hawk fly up.  The eagle took a fish away from the hawk and flew up into a tree.  I told Ron he had to creep up toward where we could see the eagle enjoying his new meal.

Here he is. He looked up, and did not fly away.

We crept closer and closer.

I used the burst feature on my camera, and came up with these pictures.

We were about 50 feet away.

We were able to just stay there and watch.  I had posted these pictures on my facebook,to the Illinois Birding Network. One of the persons posted that he thought it was a 3rd year juvenile.

He did not move a lot between pictures.

Still the same bird, we just moved a little farther along.

This time he had moved.  We could not believe our luck in being able to see an eagle this close and personal. What an opportunity we had.

We saw this adult from the other side of the river.

We had a warm front come through this weekend.  The heron was just chilling.

This male mallard had just hopped on to this ice. The burst worked this time, as I watched him slip and slide on it.  He was taking it very slowly.
A lot more of the river was open. I think in all we saw about a dozen eagles. It is amazing.
Have a great week.