A Song swallow launches off dead scrub at the Eccles Wildlife and education center

II was recently given the opportunity to present to the Intermountain Professional Photographers Association on photographing bald eagles. Aside from a dedicated trip to Alaska specifically to photograph them, my direct experience with eagles has been somewhat limited. There’s a nesting pair not far from my home, and they’re often spotted along the Weber River, but I wouldn’t call myself an eagle specialist.

What I do know about are birds in general. Drawing on that foundation — and supplementing it with plenty of deep dives — I built a 60-slide presentation covering equipment, technique, field craft, and post-processing. In truth, I suspect I learned as much preparing it as those who attended.

The program was designed as a two-part experience: a 90-minute Zoom session followed by a hands-on field outing to the Eccles Wildlife Education Center at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area near the Great Salt Lake.

A few days before the presentation, I did a scouting trip with friends. We saw one eagle — just one — perched high in a treetop for hours, studying us as carefully as we studied him. We also encountered a black pheasant, great blue herons on their nesting platforms, osprey, red-tailed hawks, a kestrel, and one particularly cooperative song sparrow that turned into one of my favorite images of the day. I returned home confident that even if eagles proved elusive, we would find photographs.

The Zoom presentation went well. The discussion was lively, the questions thoughtful. It felt like a success. The following day, eight professional photographers joined me at Farmington Bay. The weather, however, had its own agenda. As we drove down Parley’s Canyon toward Salt Lake City, precipitation began — rain, snow, and graupel (hominy snow) all taking turns. By the time we reached the wetlands, the skies were dark and dramatic, with distant curtains of falling snow and wind sweeping across the marsh.

And as you may have guessed — no eagles.

No osprey.
No red-tailed hawks.
No kestrels.
A brief pheasant sighting.
The ever-present “blue heron hotel.”
But no eagles.

There may have been some quiet disappointment, though we later learned the warmer-than-normal winter had kept many of the eagles from traveling this far south. Still, we were outdoors. We were looking. We were engaged.

Being out in nature creates a heightened state of awareness. You begin to notice subtle movement, changing light, distant shapes. You feel part of the landscape rather than separate from it.

In the end, the trip was a success — not because we captured what we expected, but because we adapted. Everyone came away with images, just not the ones we had imagined. It was a living example of one of my own talking points: always have a backup plan, and always keep looking.

Success redefined.