I tend to take the majority of my wildlife photographs within a few miles of my home in Northern Virginia, but yesterday I boldly decided to cross the Potomac River and venture into Maryland in search of Bald Eagles. One of my fellow photographers has repeatedly posted beautiful photos of eagles at Fort Washington Park and I wanted to see if I too could find them.
Fort Washington is a historic park, now run by the National Park Service, that was built to defend the river approach to Washington D.C. almost two hundred years ago. The park is a bigger than I expected and I wandered up and down walking paths, wondering where I might find the eagles. I spent a lot of time near the water, but eventually decided to climb to the higher ground, where the artillery positions were located.
As I was about to enter the fort, I glanced over at a tree in the distance and saw the shape of a large bird—it was a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). As luck would have it, it started to rain as I started to take some photos, but I managed to get a few relatively clear shots. I had to climb down one hill and up another to get closer to the tree and the eagle flew off before I could get any closer shots.
I don’t know if that tree is a favorite perching spot for the eagles, which I saw soaring at a distance a bit later in the day, but I’m confident that I will return to this location, hopefully when the weather is a bit more hospitable, to search again for a bald eagle.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Great post! Every time I look across the Potomac and see Fort Washington, I can’t believe I haven’t been there yet. Your gorgeous Eagle photos has convinced me to go within the next few weeks.
Yesterday was windy and periodically rainy, but the next time I go, I hope to have the chance to explore the historical artillery emplacements a bit more.
Any day that you see an eagle has to be a good one!
An eagle in the wild would be worth travelling for.
I am really blessed to be living in an area where I can see an amazing assortment of wildlife without having to travel far. In this case, I think I drove for about thirty minutes or so to see the eagle.