An unexpected photo on Christmas morning

This morning, for the first time in a long time, I didn't have to be anywhere in particular on a morning with clear weather. Before sunrise I was on the road in search of the Avoree Noel, which was upbound with a load for Monaca. By the time I found it, the boat was in fog. I tried getting a few shots anyway.

Then I noticed the Linda Little was downbound with 15 loads of coal drafting more than 10 feet. I got that photo. Again, in the fog.

So I went down the river and waited the fog out. As I waited, I looked up and say a heron flying overhead. I tried getting a shot, just to see how it would turn out.

The photo posted here is 1920 pixels by 1282. The original is 6016 x 4016. I took the resolution down so I wouldn't have wait an eternity for it to load.

Anyway, I zoomed in on the original image and cropped it down to this — a photo that's 442 pixels by 294 pixels, or about 7.7 one half of 1 percent of the original image.

Yeah, that's a bald eagle, not a heron. They've been along the Ohio River for several years, but this was the first time I had been able to photograph one.

It almost makes me want to buy a 600mm lens and go look for another one, but at the present time, I have better uses for $900.