Yet Another Early Morning At Baihe Reservoir (白河水庫)

I had my breakfast at 4am this morning and left Tainan at 5am intending to photograph Luliao reservoir (鹿寮水庫), the tiny reservoir on Tainan's north-eastern border with Chiayi county, with the sun rising behind me. However, although I arrived with time to spare before dawn (just before 6.30am), I found the gates to Luliao reservoir to be locked and the side entrance to have been sealed off with brand new fencing and even barbed wire. Previously, the gates had also been locked to prevent the entry of vehicles but the side entrance had been open so that anyone could walk in. I gather that Luliao reservoir is the second reservoir in Tainan privately owned by the Taiwan Sugar company, so if I want to revisit it I will have to talk to the people there to get permission.

As it was I was stuck, so I quickly headed across the short distance to the back of Baihe reservoir. I entered the hidden escarpment road as quietly as possible with my 250mm attached in the hope of photographing the eagles up close should I get an opportunity. However that slow, careful, watchful stroll ended up fruitless as I saw only wagtails and egrets. Instead of proceeding to my usual lookout points to take geographical photographs of the fractal fork formed by the escarpment, I decided to slow down and just take aesthetic shots in the pre-dawn light and mist. The first of these below shows in the foreground the rotten, wooden ruins of an old cottage on one of the narrow hills, with an old, disused water well atop another such hill in the background. Remnants of what once was...

The same cottage ruins and disused well feature in this shot below, as the sun was preparing to rise from behind the mountains...

Sunrise at about 7am...

Further along the escarpment looking out over another cul-de-sac in the southern fork of the reservoir...

Reflection of the sun and an electricity pylon in the water...

Parallel suns, very Boards of Canada-esque...

I took many more pictures at the end of the peninsula and on the way back, with most of them geographical shots. Sometime before 8am with the sun fully risen the temperature began to soar and I had to remove my sweater and long-sleeved shirt, which was when I realized I had forgotten to bring a bottle of water with me, and so I started to head back. As I approached the easternmost stem of the peninsula to re-emerge back into the farms, I became convinced I had came too early to see the eagles, and just then, just as I started to think that very thought...

A short distance down the new trail that connects the central peninsula to the shores of the northern fork, one of the eagles decided to make her presence known to me...

I was still some distance away, perhaps as much as fifty, sixty feet and these pictures are slightly zoomed in from the originals I took. The clarity is excellent for my little 250mm lens, but the distance means that, good though these shots are, they're not as good as those I managed to take at the back of Wushantou reservoir in March last year. I don't think I'll ever be able to improve on those without buying substantially more expensive equipment.

She posed for me for a good two minutes or so, before announcing that my time was up...

Moments like these induce a yearning for repeat experiences, just as they are immensely satisfying at the same time.