I was in a fantastic eagle and wildlife photo workshop in early July 2024 up in Campbell River on northern Vancouver Island in Canada. It was limited to 8 photographers with award winning professional wildlife photographer LIron Gertstman as our photo guide and Campbell River Whale Watching as the tour operator. We went out on Zodiac style boats for four days leaving the harbor about 11:30am and returning after sunset about 10pm. Below are some maps of the area.
Each day, our first stop was the “Eagle Show” at Jimmy Judd Island, about an hour boat ride from the harbor. For a few days in late June and early July when the tides, migrating Hake fish, and hundreds of bald eagles come together for a few hours to create a fantastic photo opportunity. The strong flood tide and the narrow channels create strong upwelling currents that rapidly bring the Hake fish to the surface, where they are immobilized due to their swim bladders overexpanding from the rapid ascent. The eagles wait in the trees until the Hake fish start popping up, floating on the surface as a huge buffet for the eagles. For a couple of hours, hundreds of eagles swoop down off the trees plucking the unfortunate Hake fish in a feeding orgy. LIterally every 5 to 10 seconds an eagle was getting a fish! Due to the constantly changing strong currents and whirlpools, the boat captain was working super hard to keep us positioned in the best spot for photos.
After the eagle show wound down, we’d head out looking for Orcas and Humpbacks as we slowly made our way back to the harbor, arriving just after sunset, around 10pm. We saw lots of Orcas and Humpbacks every day and had some amazing photo opportunities. Each morning before we headed out on the boats, Liron hosted 1-2 hour workshops where he shared his techniques on shooting and post-processing. We had a chance to work on some of our images and apply Liron’s tips on how to edit them to turn them into really great photos.
What an amazing trip! i can’t say enough about how enjoyable it was. Over the four days I shot over 20,000 images. I wound up wirh hundreds of “keepers” and am sharing some of them below. The “best of the best” of these will be posted for sale on my photo sales website.
Campbell River
The Eagle Show
