Golden Eagle, Aquila chrysaetos
I was taking a landscape photo of the fall scenery at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico with a medium zoom lens in 2009 when this bird flew across in front of me, and I got this distant grab-shot, which, undistiguished as it is, was nevertheless my first postable image of a Golden Eagle. In November 2011, I was able to get some additional photos, shown below, but again none of them does justice to these magnificent birds, so I'm still waiting for a proper picture.
The image above and the two below were taken in an excellent raptor area, Santa Ana Valley in San Benito County; earlier in November 2011 no less than 32 Golden Eagles (along with many Ferruginous Hawks and Prairie Falcons) had been seen in this area. The white on the tail of the bird shown above mark it as a juvenile; the all-dark underparts of the flying bird shown below mean it is an adult.
