I saw the silhouettes dancing and circling over the blue-white sky and wondered if there were eagles or crows. At the distance I spotted them, it was too hard to tell, but I waited to see if any action would follow. It was evening and the sun was already low in the sky finishing off a perfect fall day.

Nothing, and by now another photographer, carrying the mother-of-all lenses, was standing beside me watching me watch the empty sky. We traded silence greetings and when I turned my gaze back up I saw them. Two bald eagles landing on the top of a nearby pine.

“Yes, that’s what I’m talking about,” I whispered and deployed my monopod as quickly as I could.

“Be nice if they were doing something interesting,” the other photographer said as he set his tripod out.

Then we waited as the eagles sat atop their perch watching snow geese flock to nearby farmers’ fields, returning from a day feeding by the shore.