Mongaup Pond bald eagles

We discovered a new favorite place for camping this year, at Catskills' Mongaup Pond. One added benefit was a set of nesting bald eagles, which from time to time we saw perched on the trees above the lake. Every time we saw them, we would hike to a place near them and try to creep up. We got pretty close, but not close enough for "wow" shots. Finally, we gave up.

At some point later in the day we rented a canoe. From the canoe, we noticed that one adult eagle was sitting all this time on a tree right above our camping spot! But you could only see him from the water:


This is a juvenile (2nd or 3rd year), and I did get pretty close to him to take this shot:


This is an amusing sequence. We watched from the shore as the juvenile, who was sitting on a tree across the lake, took off and aimed seemingly right for a boat with two people on it. But it was really aiming at some fish that popped up next to the canoe. Check out how close it got to them, and these guys' reaction: