CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Amateur photographer Kevin Jack of Charleston has developed a keen eye for potential camera fodder. Jack is always looking for the unusual or that which is out of the ordinary. He’s naturally in search of anything which might give him the chance to break out the lens and start clicking.
One rainy afternoon in mid-November he was headed from his workplace, Royal Subaru on Charleston’s west side to the bank downtown. He did his usual scan of the riverbank along Charleston’s Kanawha Boulevard and something caught his attention.
“I developed a habit of always being on the lookout for whatever, hawks, rare birds, whatever it might be. I saw something sitting by the walkway along the river on Magic Island,” Jack explained in a recent e-mail. “I knew what my mind told me, but driving 40 miles an hour in rain, I told myself that could not be what I though, so I drove on to the bank.”
Jack finished up his bank business and headed back to work. However, to satisfy the burning curiosity in his mind, he deliberately slowed his roll along the Boulevard as he passed Magic Island a second time.
“Sure enough it was still there,” Jack explained. “I found a place to park, grabbed my camera and stuffed it in my jacket because it was raining. I made my way across the Boulevard, and down the steps. I had to look through my camera to see it for sure, and to my astonishment it was a bald eagle.”
Instinctively he started mashing the shutter and clicking off one shot after another. The eagle posed itself, then took flight,and soared over the Kanawha River headed toward South Charleston.
Although not terribly rare any more, eagles are still a rather uncommon sight in the Capital City. Jack shared some of his photos in the posted gallery.