Well, we were headed to the Valley for AJ's third birthday on Sunday, Terr had gone to Annapolis to visit with her Mother on Thursday, so Allie and I headed up to Mom's on Saturday. Saturday night it did the snow drop thing and dropped 15 cms of snow. It was predicted to stop around 8 AM Sunday - with sunny periods to follow. So I felt there may be a chance. However - 9AM and it was still snowing hard and really blowing. Margie called and said the storm was over up the mountain and the sun was shining... 9:15 - got nothing to lose - better head on over... Got my gear together and headed out for the 8 km drive over to Middle Dyke Road - all the way sweating that I had missed it... Pulled up and there were only about a dozen cars there. Oh great - thought I missed the feeding ... I snapped open the hand warmers and shoved them into my gloves. Holy crap it was cold -15C with a drifting wind - and the wind chill was -30C. No eagles in the trees - no wonder... Got over to the field and met a guy from Boston and we started a chat. He had never been here before so I asked if the chicken truck had been here yet, and he said no... Great - and within 5 minutes up drives the chicken truck - up onto the field - the only people allowed out on the field. Out jumps four guys and they start chucking the chickens off the back of the truck. I said to my new-found friend - "Get ready buddy - won't be long, now !!! You're in for a treat!!" I was still really only hoping.
...and then along comes one, then 2 then 5, then 10... and more. The only sound on the field is the constant clicking of hundreds of shutters flapping... and flapping ... and flapping. And then the eerie knocking and calling the eagles do as some watch from the trees.
After 10-15 minutes all Buddy could say was "Wow, I've never seen anything like this before... This is amazing... I've gotta come back next year!!!" and he probably won't be coming alone ... which is great for him and great for the economy... tourism dollars - renewable...
The show was spectacular ... and everyone was riveted to the gathering, and the shutters continued as the only sound - besides the howling wind - but we didn't mind one bit...
Even with the warmers - I still froze my fingers and could feel the cold... My auto focus on my zoom was slowing to the point where I almost couldn't shoot inflight !!!
and then as quickly as it started, it finished ... and it was over... It's amazing how quickly they arrived ... and then departed. I'm sure it was the cold weather. There has always been several who stuck around for many photo ops but these birds headed for cover I believe... and so did I -for some heat... and around 700 pics ...
I've put a slideshow together with some music and will try and have that put up somewhere for folks to enjoy... In the meantime please enjoy these ...
