This week I took a game drive in the nearby hills on an afternoon when the snow was blowing hard. I was near the end of the drive and had already begun thinking about dinner options. It was 4:30 p.m. and it's too dark to shoot by 4:45 p.m. I was within 200 yards from the end of this particular snow packed dirt road, when out of the corner of my eye I saw some black birds scatter close to the road. I turned to look at them and saw a golden eagle on the ground in the snow. As I slowed I saw what I thought was another eagle right up against the bank of the road under the fence. At first I thought it was entangled in the barbed wire, but then it flapped its wings and walked down the bank.
I stopped the truck as quickly as I could and left it parked in the middle of the road -yes, the very middle of the road. Because the eagle was so close to the road (it was 20 feet from the road, but about 6 feet below the road), I left my door open so I wouldn't scare it away. I crept as close as I dared and began shooting photos with my #NikonZ6 which rocks in low light. As I worked on focus, ISO and exposure settings, I wondered where the other eagle had gone. Out of the corner of my eye I could see turkeys in the brush a few scant yards from the eagle and I could hear them "puttering" to themselves. In my viewfinder I could see that the eagle was feeding on a turkey carcass. I was about to get my best photos yet of this #goldeneagle when I was joined by my compadre Sam, a black lab - I'd left the door open and he was curious. Despite my frantic, whispered beggings to come to me, Sam promptly went to the bank smelling where the turkeys had just been. The feeding eagle decided he'd had enough and departed.
Later, processing my photos, I reflected on what I'd seen. The black birds I'd seen scattering must have been the flock of turkeys. The eagle I'd seen against the bank must have been the same eagle I'd seen feeding. The turkeys were on their way to their roost (their roosting tree was less than 50 yards from the site) when the eagle had pinned its prey up against the bank. The eagle had fought the turkey from the bank to the level ground and immediately began feeding on the bird (I think it was a "he" because it seemed a bit smaller than I think the female would have been). There probably wasn't "another" eagle. It had been the one bird wrestling with the turkey. The eagle wasn't about to lose his just won prey, even with me standing less than 30 feet away taking pictures, and he fed throughout my being there.
Moral of the story: Keep your eyes and mind opened. What you see isn't necessarily what you think you saw. Both the turkeys and I were mindlessly going to our roosts when the totally unexpected happened. For the turkeys the flock was reduced by one. For me a magical moment was experienced and upon later reflection interpreted. Lessons learned: keep the camera switched "on" until I get home; keep the door closed to keep Sam inside.