52 Nebraskaland • December 2025
Addicted to Eagles
Story by Eric Fowler, Photos by Teri Elmshauser
nlike her husband, Jake, Teri
Elmshauser can't wait for Lake
McConaughy to freeze over. For
Jake, the ice means there will be
no more walleye fishing until spring.
For Teri, it means she will soon be
making the short drive to the spillway
below Kingsley Dam, where she can
feed her "addiction" — photographing
bald eagles.
Elmshauser lives 15 minutes from
Lake Ogallala, which, in the coldest
of winters, can host hundreds of
bald eagles. On any given morning
when the eagles are around between
December and March, you are likely to
see her there, sitting in her shiny red
photo blind, a Jeep named Rubi. With
her huge camera and lens resting on
a sandbag in the open window, and a
heated blanket in her lap and slippers
keeping her warm, she waits for the
action: eagles swooping down to
feed on fish that are flushed through
the dam's hydroelectric plant. If you
frequent Nebraska photography sites
like Nebraska Through the Lens on
Facebook, you've seen her work.
Her interest in photography began
as a child in Lincoln. "Grandma used
to waste a lot of money on those little
110 cameras and film," she said. Her
interest faded growing up, but was
rekindled in 2006, when she bought a
basic DSLR with a basic 300mm lens
and took a photography class. Soon
after, she became enamored with
eagles but is quick to say those first
U
Ogallala woman enamored
by bald eagle photography
Teri Elmshauser of Ogallala spends every winter morning she can sitting in her red
photo blind named Rubi photographing bald eagles at Lake Ogallala.
ERIC FOWLER, NEBRASKALAND
