Flight of Fancy

Brian Wilkinson

(Updated: Thursday, July 22, 2010, 5:16 PM)

Southern California resident Bill Brehm, Jr., caught more than rainbow trout and kokanee salmon during a recent three-day Bass Lake vacation. Brehm and his trusty Nikon D3 captured some stunning photos of Bass Lake's resident bald eagles.

Brehm and his father, Bill Brehm, Sr., were on the lake with fishing guide Todd Witter for three days. It was on Brehm's last day of fishing that he witnessed one of the Bass Lake eagles diving and snatching a fish out of the water.

The adult eagles had two eaglets this year and the young birds have been out of the nest for about three weeks. They have been spotted many times at the east end of the lake.

It was in 1988 that a pair of eagles first appeared at Bass Lake and in 1989 the pair hatched their first eaglet. Biologists believe the current adult eagles at the lake are offspring of the original pair.

The adult eagles usually migrate north to the Columbia River toward the end of summer and return to Bass Lake in late October.

Brehm lives in Poway near San Diego and is president of Brehm Communications, a family-owned community newspaper group that has newspapers in seven states.

An avid fisherman, Brehm considers himself a "hobbyist photographer" who loves to take vacation pictures.

"I love Bass Lake and Oakhurst and it was pretty exciting to take photos of an eagle and go fishing at the same time," Brehm said. "There is only the one pair of eagles at the lake and it was a pleasure to watch them do some fishing of their own while we were fishing."

Brehm took his shots from Witter's pontoon boat with a 200mm zoom lens at 1/2000th shutter speed and a continuous shooting speed of 11 frames per second.