No good deed goes unpunished? Well sometimes a good deed pays off handsomely. A few miles from our home in central Iowa is R16, a hard-paved road that gets more and more traffic every day. Last winter I was following a northbound pickup on R16, when I noted something quite large on the shoulder of the road. The pickup came to within five feet of the object. When I got closer, I realized it was an eagle feeding on a fresh deer carcass. Knowing it was only a matter of time before the eagle was hit by a passing vehicle, I pulled over and drug the deer into the ditch. I tried to drag it up the opposite ditch embankment, but the slope was too steep. I went home, grabbed a long rope, returned to the carcass, tied the rope to the deer’s front feet, and drug it up the ditch side and 75 feet onto the adjoining field. Luckily there was an approach about 100 feet from the relocated carcass. The next day I saw an eagle feeding on the carcass. I pulled into the approach and photographed him (or her) for about half an hour. I knew if I got out of the car I would have scared him off, so my car made the perfect blind. For the shots, I used my Nikon D7200, Tamron 150-600 zoom, and a bean bag on the window sill of my car. The bean bag works great for camera/long lens support, and I carry it with me at all times.
