I was determined to get some shots of a sandhill crane, so I was out paddling by 0630 hrs.  On my way to look for sandhill cranes, I spotted this immature eagle, made golden by the early morning light.

When I got to the bay where I’d heard the sandhills, the tide wasn’t nearly as low as yesterday, but it had been going out for a couple of hours, so there still wasn’t enough water depth to get very close to the area where the sandhills would be looking for goodies.  

After checking the shore with my camera zoomed to the max, I had just about given up, when I spotted some movement way up among the rocks.  At first, I thought it was too small to be a sandhill, but that was only because I was so far away.  I zoomed in on it, and sure enough there was a lone sandhill.  I knew that the resolution wouldn’t be very good, but I started shooting anyway, just in case this was all I’d get.

The sandhill didn’t seem to be disturbed by my presence, so I decided to take a chance and beach my kayak and try to get closer on foot.  I knew that the tide would be going out for another couple of hours, so I didn’t have to worry about the tide coming in and floating my kayak out to sea, but I still kept checking it, just in case I’d read the tide tables wrong.

This sandhill roamed all over the cove, with me right behind him.  Eventually, he just wore me out.  I couldn’t take another picture.

Now, I had to get back to my kayak, which, by now was way up the beach, which meant I had to carry it about a quarter of a mile back to the water to launch it.  I was really getting a workout today.

I decided to take a couple more shots of the eagle’s nest I found yesterday, since the sun was out today.  There still weren’t any occupants.

Since I still didn’t have any shots of mergansers, I decided to paddle outside the bay, where I thought they might be hanging out.  There were nasty tide rips, but I figured I didn’t have far to go before I could duck back into the protected bay.  Unfortunately, when I got to where I was hoping to duck back in, the tide was too low to get back in from there.  There weren’t any mergansers around, but I did spot this pair of immature eagles.  Maybe they had hatched in that eagle’s nest.