I was waiting on one of the boardwalks at Juanita Bay when an eagle caught something and took it to eat on the post out in the water.  After it finished its food, it headed to one of the logs in the water to clean itself up in the lake water.  Having watched this routine a number of times, I figured that it would finish cleaning and then fly towards the trees near where I was standing.  I figured that, rather than try to get closer, I should wait where I was and have the eagle come to me.

Sure enough, the behavior was as predicted.  The eagle went to log and spent a bit of time cleaning itself up after devouring the catch.  The only tricky thing with this position was that there is a very cluttered background.  If I was shooting with my older DSLR, I would have been using a single autofocus point which would be very effective as long as I kept it on the subject.  The mirrorless cameras are much cleverer but also like to look for subjects and, if something is against a busy background, the camera might not recognize the target.  This had been an issue in a similar situation before.

This time, the contrast was sufficient to allow me to track the eagle effectively.  It came straight towards me as it headed to the trees to relax and digest its dinner.  I managed to get a few good shots of it as it got airborne and came my way.  Sadly, the conditions were rather dull and, while I got some shots, they weren’t quite as dramatic as I would have liked.  Still, head on with an eagle is always good.