Hokkaido Wildlife Birding Photography Tours always provide participants with hundreds of amazing up close and personal encounters with rare bird species such as The Steller’s Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus). When photographing raptors on pack ice, I always have our group gear up and head out well before sunrise. One morning late in the season weather conditions were perfect for photographing raptors on pack ice, and the ice was super close to shore. The Ocean was like glass, and the pack ice was stable. So, this day I choose I chose to shoot from Zodiac boats because of how tranquil the Pacific Ocean was. More often, participants and I enjoy spotting and photographing from the deck of a large chartered vessel, but this day the pack ice was close to shore, so zodiacs were ideal. The great thing about photographing from a Zodiac boat is the angle of view, your either below the raptors or at eye level, and this is idea for photographing wildlife. The calm Pacific Ocean pack ice and the golden hour provided perfectly balanced light, the glassy shimmer was a photographic dream come true. In over 25 years leading Hokkaido photo tours, I had only seen these conditions a handful of times. On this morning, the group I was leading caught sight of a Steller’s sea eagle in mid-hunt. Having just plucked a large fish from the exposed crevices in the Pacific Ocean among the pack ice, the eagle was perched among some of the more stable floes. The flesh and scales of the fish put up no resistance to the Steller’s sea eagle’s razor sharp beak and talons. My zodiac was only about 10 meters (30 feet) from the eagle, and at the moment I took the photo, the raptor’s eyes met mine. Immediately after witnessing this moment of pure instinct, the eagle squawked and gulped down the first part of its meal. My years of experience in birding photography and having the right equipment on my annual Hokkaido Photo Tour meant that the moment will live forever. For this image I used the Nikon Z9, with the Nikon 120-300mm AF-S NIKKOR f/2.8E FL ED SR VR Lens. My setting were 1/2500sec f11, ISO 1000.
