Ed and I went out an hour before sunrise to get some landscape/sunrise shots. I took a bunch, but I'm not happy with most of them. I actually like the shots Ed got from inside the warm van. :(

After we came back from that, I headed down to the road that runs along the river to see what was flying around this morning. There were 6-7 tripods set up on the observation deck but nobody was really by their camera, so I figured it was going to be a stand-and-wait morning. We were planning to head into the next town over for breakfast, so I drove up and down the banks of the "Mighty Mississippi" and sure enough, I found this guy hiding up in a tree. He was pretty well hidden from 75% of the angles that someone in a car would see. I just caught the bright colored beak as I was driving past, and pulled over to get a few shots without ticking him off too much. It was hard to keep the camera focused on him and not the branches, so only about 3-4 of these are sharp enough for print. It didn't help that I had it in servo focus in case he took to the sky. That might have added to the low number of keepers.

So, we're all packed up and just about ready to hit the road. I want to thank my in-laws Ed and Maralee for letting us stay with them and for giving us the four star treatment during our stay. We always look forward to coming out for a visit, the eagles were just a bonus.