Epic Eagles of Alaska

In February, when the great silence of winter still holds the north, Kachemak Bay becomes a gathering place. Here, where mountains rise stark and white from waters that refuse to freeze, the eagles arrive. They come by the thousands, drawn by the two great engines that drive all animal behavior: food and reproduction. The bay, one of the last holdouts of open water as winter tightens its grip on Alaska, offers both in abundance.

This isn’t called Epic Eagles without reason. At times you may find yourself surrounded by a hundred of these raptors, their white heads stark against dark wings. They soar, they fight in midair tumbles, they perch in snow-laden spruce waiting with the patience that only a predator can afford. They plunge toward the surface, striking fish from the water in explosions of spray right before our lenses. All of this against a backdrop of peaks that seem to exist outside of geologic time. These mountains are young by planetary standards, still rising, still being carved by the very glaciers that feed the extraordinary productivity of these waters.

The biological richness of Kachemak Bay is not accidental. Tidal currents and glacial melt create conditions that support massive populations of fish, which in turn support everything else: harbor seals with their dark, knowing eyes, sea otters methodically cracking urchins on their chests, harlequin ducks in their baroque plumage working the tide line, long-tailed ducks rafting in deeper water. This is an ecosystem operating at full throttle, and the eagles know it. They have known it for thousands of years.

The birds gather here waiting for breakup, that moment when ice begins to fracture and retreat from the inland lakes and rivers where they nest. In the parlance of Alaska, breakup is not a metaphor. It is the literal shattering of winter's hold, the moment when water remembers it was once liquid. The eagles reunite here with lifelong mates, pairs bonded through decades of shared nesting duties, and they wait. Evolution has tuned their internal clocks to this pause, this gathering, this moment between migration and the demands of the breeding season to come.

For five days we will work with these birds. You will learn to read wind direction and light direction, to understand how eagles position themselves for hunting based on thermal currents, to anticipate behavior by watching the subtle shifts in posture that signal intent. This is truly a master class in flight photography, but it is also an education in ethology (animal behavior), ecology, and phenology (the timing of natural events).