Stumbling onto a Bald Eagle’s Nest

So I was out for an easy bike ride on the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) rail-trail that goes between Pittsburgh, PA and ends in Washington D.C. when I came across a few guys staring up into the trees.  Since I have seen some Bald Eagle’s in the area, I stopped and asked what they were looking at and sure enough, they said an eagle nest.

Today I was feeling under the weather, so while my daughter was at her sports practice, I brought along my single speed bike and went on a lazy ride on the GAP to get some miles in and as usual, brought along my heavy camera backpack full of gear, just in case.

‘Just in case’ turned out to be true as the 2 guys were pointing to where the nest was and saying how they forgot their binoculars, I was pulling my Fuji X-T5 and Fuji 150-600mm lens out of my backpack.  Quickly I could see that there was a bald eagle in the nest.  As we were chatting, the female (we think) flew away from the nest and within 15 seconds, the male (we think) came to watch over the nest.

The birds are awesome to see in person.  The grace and agility is astounding.  So we watched for a few minutes and then I started to hike a bit closer to the nest to get some different angles.  The issue was the amount of brush and branches that were blocking the direct line of sight.  I put the camera in subject detection mode for birds and it did a surprisingly good job of finding the eagle even through the branches.  The in flight shots from above and below show just how good modern autofocus has become.

The system is not fool proof, but it does a very good job of finding and tracking.  Needless to say, I’m very happy I decided to lug around the big backpack on this bike ride.