Eight years ago Skip Radcliffe’s wife said to him, “Man, I would like a camera.”

She never used the camera. Skip gave it a shot eight years ago.

“I just started to use it and it just escalated,” Skip said.

Skip, age 57, lives in Ocean Shores, just a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean. He’s now on his sixth camera. He focuses on the life of the ocean — ships, waves, sunsets, pelicans, the dunes, the fall colors — but he is fixated on eagles.

He shoots from the jetty on the south end of Ocean Shores all the way north to Copalis Beach, depending on the tide and where the birds congregate.

“There’s always something different,” he said. “I like getting out in nature. You’re just out there by yourself, I like the peace and quiet. I like the different seasons. And this weather, you wait five minutes and the weather’s going to change.”

Skip grew up in Enumclaw, where his parents owned a lumber and hardware store. One of Skip’s other hobbies besides photography is woodworking, the family trade. He’s also obsessed with working with wood, turning out frames for his photos, gorgeous cutting boards and all sorts of wooden crafts. He also grows dahlias.

His parents would take him and his sister to Ocean Shores on vacation when he was a youngster. He eventually moved to Spokane where he met his wife, bought a house, and kept with the tradition of taking trips to the ocean.

“I took my wife here, she just fell in love with it,” he said. “We sold the house and came here.”

Skip usually rises early each day and heads to the beach.

“That’s usually when the birds are out there and before the people show up, just before sunrise,” he said.

A while back the salmon were running up coastal rivers, and the eagles disappeared from the beach. He said at the time, “Eagles are now up at the river, that’s where the fish are, they’ll be back.” They’ve been back for a while now, mostly perched on the beach logs along the dunes.

Lately he’s been taking pictures of a pair of eagles with some eaglets in a nest in the south end of Ocean Shores.

“That’s been one of my favorites, I’m pretty sure I got a photo of their first flight,” he said.

Skip has put together a glossy, 24-page hardcover book of his eagle photos to share with friends and those interested. Cost is $35 and for $8 more he’ll mail it to you. If you want a book, look him up at Facebook Messenger.

He had a hard time choosing the photos.

“As many eagle pictures I have it was tough to choose,” he said.

Skip Radcliffe