“I used to call it a trifecta if I could take a trip and get a moose, a bighorn sheep and an elk all on the same day,” he said. “I never dreamed of getting three things in the same picture.”
Hear from Weskamp about the amazing photos in the video player below:
Bald eagle, mountain goats and marmot share the frame in Colorado photographer’s ‘once in a lifetime’ snaps
Weskamp drove up Mount Blue Sky Thursday in search of the peak’s famous mountain goat herd and marmots. He said the goats were “everywhere” near the parking lot when he and his wife arrived at the summit. He hoped to photograph them, only away from the parking lot and bathroom facility, so he followed as they wandered up a nearby ridge.
“My wife noticed a bald eagle soaring. And I'm sitting there trying to track it, and it finally just landed on top of that ridge,” Weskamp recalled. “It sat there on that ridge for a while and next thing I know there's a marmot right next to it. [Then] the little herd of mountain goats come walking over the ridge and they're all right there.”
“It was just such an amazing thing to sit there and watch.”
“That’s kind of who shamed me into going out there,” Weskamp joked on Friday. “It's like, okay, Mike's up there getting great video. I need to go up there and get some pictures, because the opportunities are there.”
Weskamp, who describes himself as “a bald eagle photographer” and says America’s national bird is among his favorite things to capture, wasn’t expecting to see one on Thursday. He said it was a pleasant surprise because of the eagle’s special meaning to him.
“I'm a retired military guy, so I'm very patriotic. I love the bald eagle,” said Weskamp, who served 10 years in the U.S. Army and 20 more with the U.S. Public Health Service before retiring in 2020. “If you go look for bald eagles and you find them, that's great. But when you're not looking for them and you find one, that's just amazing.”
The photos Weskamp took Thursday – and many others he’s shared in the photography group over the years – are incredible. But when reflecting on his photography with Denver7, he said he hopes his work shows that anyone can get out and experience Colorado’s beautiful outdoors.
“I'm a disabled vet. So, the good thing about it is most of my pictures are [taken from] pretty close to a road because I don't hike up long trails anymore,” he said. “So these pictures are all things that the average person who doesn't want to go hike up a 14er or hike a bunch of miles can see.”
“You just gotta get out on the road and keep your eyes open.”
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