Staff photo by Andy Molloy
An American Bald Eagle lands with the carcass of a gull it it killed along the banks of the Kennebec River in Augusta in 2005. A flock of gulls and a murder of crows mobbed the eagle as it sat on the ice next to an emerging spot of water. Provoked, the eagle pinned a gull to the ice. The eagle ate his meal in peace until resuming his flight upstream.

About the shot

A classic winter bird fight raged above the Kennebec River. Gulls shrieking, crows squawking and a lone eagle uttering pathetic chirps.

Two women had joined me beneath Memorial Bridge in Augusta while I photographed the Bald Eagle being mobbed in the air by gulls and crows.

"Eagles don't consume birds," I told the women. I clicked a few frames. They are fish eagles, I explained, devoting most of their energy to capturing critters beneath the water.

I had a captive audience: An eagle in the lens and a pair of ladies watching me. The gulls dove on the eagle and crows snatched at it while it wobbled in the sky above the Kennebec River.

It's a shame, I recall saying, because eagles could eat well and eat often if they did eat birds. But, I said with pitiful emphasis, they don't.

At that moment the eagle turned, dove and snatched a gull with its talons. Silence from my companions and silence in the sky as the murder of crows and mob of gulls abandoned the eagle's airspace. The eagle calmly picked apart the gull on the shelf of ice next to the flowing Kennebec.

"What else don't they eat?" one of my friends asked.

Silence from the photographer, too.

--by Andy Molloy, Kennebec Journal staff photographer

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From Kennebec Journal staff photographer Andy Molloy. "Everybody was seeing the same thing at the same time. I thought it was really cool that we were sharing the same thing." Andy used 500mm and 600mm lenses, shooting at f/4, and shutter speeds ranging from 1/500th to 1/15 of a second. He also changed the ISO rating from 200 to 2000 to accommodate the moon's decreasing brightness. As the the lunar eclipse progressed, the moon got so dark that a higher ISO was needed to use a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the moving moon's image.

Ironically, Andy had to get down on his hands and knees to shoot the moon. It was so high in the sky that his three-foot-long tripod-mounted lens and camera was just waist-high at the viewfinder.

From Morning Sentinel staff photographer Jeff Pouland. "I felt compelled to photograph the lunar eclipse because the weather cooperated. Wednesday night the sky was incredibly clear and the scene was too beautiful to pass up. I started taking photos around 9:20 p.m. and finished taking shots around 10:15 p.m.

"Because the angle of the moon was so high, I was unable to use a tripod. Instead, I bundled up and laid down on my front porch. I used a 500mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. I turned in four photos to show the progression of the earth's shadow moving across the moon. My first exposure was ISO 1600 1/400 sec at f/5.6. Photo number two was ISO 1600 at 1/13 sec. at f/5.6. Photo number three was ISO 1600 at 1/5 sec. at f/5.6 and my final exposure was ISO 1600 at 1/5 sec. at f/5.6. Since I was using a big lens and slow shutter speeds, I used my motor drive to capture some photos without motion blur. I also used BRAS from my days as a boy scout to hold the camera as still as possible. That's: Breath, Relax, Aim and Shoot."

From Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel chief photographer Jim Evans: "I was trying to show the eclipse happening in our area. Colby College's well-known weather vane would work well, I hoped. Luckily you can park nearly anywhere you want at Colby that time of night (as long as you don't leave your car there too long), so I drove right up to Miller Library. My fingers were numb by the time I got my metal tripod set up and camera mounted, but the passing students who were watching the sky and commenting on the experience made up for the hassle.

"The moon moves slowly across the sky and the weather vane spins with a slight breeze so making a night photo is a bit tricky. Boosting the ISO to 800 allowed me to shoot at f/22 at 1/20th of a second while using a 400mm lens and a tripod. Although I was hoping for more detail in the moon, I liked the slight blurring I got because of the feeling of this fleeting event. That's the sort of happy accident I hope for."

Staff photo by Andy Molloy
DIPPING AT DUSK: Tyler Cote, of Monmouth, jigs for smelts within a shack at Baker's Smelt Camps in Pittston Saturday evening as other anglers walk to their shacks on the Kennebec River. Most anglers caught a smelt or two as the tide turned. The smelt season should continue, with heavy ice on the river, through March.





Staff photo by Andy Molloy
ROLLING ON THE RIVER: Children roll snowballs recently on the Kennebec River before a cluster of smelt shacks. The wet, sticky snow made for excellent snowman conditions.

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Staff photo by Andy Molloy
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: A Cedar Waxwing, left, watches a Bohemian Waxwing collect a berry from a bush behind Fuller's Market in West Gardiner Monday afternoon. Large flocks of Bohemians are irrupting across Maine and, in some instances, joining the native Maine Cedar waxwings feeding on fruit this winter. Bohemians tend to be slightly larger and grayer than their Cedar cousins.

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Staff photo by Travis Barrett
LINING UP: Mike Guarino winds line back onto a reel on Messalonskee Lake recently. Guarino was on the prowl for northern pike and perch with Doug Hall, though the pair found some excellent smallmouth bass fishing.

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On a day like this everyone can use a reminder that winter doesn't last forever (although it seems like it might this year). Robins are our traditional first signal that winter is coming to a close, but lately they've become almost year-round residents.

Staff photo by Andy Molloy
SPRING FLING: A robin picks a berry from a bush last week in Augusta. Flocks of birds have been spotted feeding across Maine.

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Morning Sentinel staff photo
ELM CITY KICKER: Addison Duong, 13, flies off a jump while snowboarding with friends at a hill off Sherwin Street in Waterville on Sunday. Duong said he and some friends started building the jump on Saturday and added to it on Sunday.

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Staff photo by Travis Barrett
BEACHED: Jason Frost of the Skowhegan Fire Department floats in a hole cut in Lake George recently. As part of Lake George Regional Park's annual Winter Carnival, the fire department was putting on a demonstration of cold-water rescue in new cold-resistant waterproof suits.

Related story.

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Staff photo by Andy Molloy
EAGLE EYES: A bald eagle scrutinizes a human while perched Monday in Vassalboro. A pair of the raptors have been watching the fields and streams next to a farm along Seven Mile Brook this winter.

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