This “story behind the image” is about an eagle in flight shot that almost never was. I was at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge for the second time and there were many eagles out and about that day. I was very fortunate to have spotted the dilute plumage juvenile bald eagle that had been seen at the refuge. Some were calling it the “caramel eagle.” There is some debate among the birding community as to whether this eagle is leucistic or dilute plumage, and whether or not the two terms are interchangeable. I’ll leave that to the experts and just say that I was very pleased to have the opportunity to photograph this rare bird.

Unfortunately, she didn’t do much while I was watching her, so all I got were perching photos. (I have no idea if it is a he or she, but I’m calling it “her” because she looks rather feminine.)

After my good fortune on the first trip around the auto tour loop, I decided to go around again. I had already seen three or four adult bald eagles, and a couple of juveniles in addition to the caramel one.

About 3/4 of the way around the loop, I noticed a refuge employee wrapping up his day’s work out in one of the closed areas. He was using a loader and was heading for the main road, which I was on. As I passed one of the locked gates, he was opening it in preparation to bring the loader through. It was about that time I spotted an adult bald eagle in a tree a few hundred yards ahead. Since I was driving into the sun, I decided to try and drive past the tree so I could shoot the eagle with the sun behind me.

So far, so good. I always try to get at least one shot of the bird perched before it inevitably flies away. The only problem was, it had no intention of flying away! You see, at the Sacramento Wildlife Refuge, and other refuges in the area, it’s strictly forbidden to get out of your car while on the auto tour route. Not only that, but the birds seem to know it! So, we were at a stand off. Me sitting there waiting for the eagle to fly and the eagle staring at me knowing there was nothing I could do but sit there and point my camera out the car window. Then I heard the loader coming. Ha, I thought! I bet that thing will make you fly! But then…it stopped. What?

I looked down the road and there was the loader, stopped. It turns out, the polite refuge employee saw that I was photographing the eagle and didn’t want to wreck my shot! Little did he know, I already had shots of the eagle in the tree. I wanted shots of the eagle flying!

So, I frantically motioned out the window of my car for him to keep coming. But he didn’t. Now I was in a stand off with both the eagle and the loader. I decided to wait them out. I must have sat there for ten minutes before the loader operator finally got tired of waiting on me and proceeded up the road.

And, just as I had suspected, the eagle that was immune to cars passing did indeed react when a piece of heavy equipment came along. And I was ready!

I already knew that patience is one of the keys to wildlife photography, but that day I learned that sometimes you have to be patient, not only with the animals, but the humans as well.