We are pretty fortunate to live a little over an hour from one of the best places to photograph bald eagles east of the Mississippi River. The Conowingo Dam is one of the largest non-federal hydroelectric dams in the United States, spanning the Susquehanna River in Maryland before it flows into Chesapeake Bay. It is operated by Constellation Energy and the area below it is known as Fisherman’s Park. The park is popular with fisherman, birdwatchers and especially for our purposes photographers.
A large quantity of bald eagles and other birds watch for fish flowing over the dam or swimming in the areas below it year round, with particular fury in the periods of April and November/December. We went to Conowingo once before, in the middle of January, and it was a spectacular time. Even though it was the off season, and cold, we saw an amazing amount of mature and immature eagles.
I am a member of a Facebook group that posts photographs of eagles taken at the dam, and I happened to see on Facebook that a couple of people had seen a large quantity of bald eagles there a few days before. Work was slow enough to permit running down there on a work day, and so we gathered up my mom, the kids and our photo gear to go down to the dam.
It was clear from the number of photographers around that there were plenty of eagles around, and they did not disappoint. We found a picnic table, set up the tripod and settled in for an afternoon of watching the national symbol of the United States. There was an incredible amount of activity in the hours that followed. It turns out that I was a bit out of practice and did not set my shutter speed fast enough for the action without catching some motion blur. But I did get a few photographs that I thought captured the day well.
