Red Wing, Minnesota

Earlier in the week I read in Birdchik's blog about the Bald Eagles in Red Wing. With rain being promised the next two days, I had to make the trip, of course. Unfortunately, the only eagles I was able to find were quite far away, across from the marina, as you can see from these pictures. I took a few shots anyway and kept adding teleconverters to my 400mm lens; first a 1.4x, then stacking it with a 2x. Image sharpness suffers and at this distance the extra magnification seemed to add little to detail on the birds. But I'm sharing these pictures anyway so that you may appreciate what can and cannot be done under such circumstances.

After the disappointment at Red Wing, I decided to head down to Wabasha to see if there might be some eagles left there -- most of them have started moving up north. The route to Wabaxha took some extra time due to a railroad chemical spill -- we were detoured on smaller roads all the way down. But the sun was shining and the scenery delightful.

The extra effort was worthwhile. I'll post my Wabasha pictures tomorrow.