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Breast cancer survivor Meghan Dyckova turned to photography and nature after her diagnosis three years ago. On Saturday in the snow, the Sayville mother of three had the photo experience of a lifetime.
Inside Sans Souci County Park in Sayville, Dyckova pointed her Nikon 3400 to the sky and caught stunning images of a pair of American bald eagles — one flying overhead and the other perched in a snow-kissed tree.
“It was breathtaking,” Dyckova, 40, said. “There are no words to describe how incredible it was. I teared up. I have never seen anything like that before.”
During the teeth of the afternoon’s winter storm, Dyckova grabbed her camera and a zoom lens her husband Stephen gave her for Christmas, and drove up the road to the park located off Broadway Avenue.
“I wanted to see the if the snow was on the trees, and to see how it looked on the lake,” she said.
Once inside the park about 4 p.m., a group of three boys saw Dyckova carrying her camera and tipped her off to the eagles that were gliding over the lakes.
“I saw one perched in the tree,” said Dyckova, a librarian at Accompsett Elementary School in Smithtown. “And the other was flying overhead. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was incredible.”
Once back home, Dyckova slipped her camera’s SD card into her computer and was ecstatic to see how clear her images of the eagles came out.
“I didn’t want to look on the camera’s screen because sometimes it looks like a good image on the camera and I get all hopeful, and then later on the computer, it’s blurry,” she said.
While it’s still very uncommon to spot a bald eagle, the giant bird has made quite a comeback in recent years on Long Island. There are eight known bald eagle nests on Long Island, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.
But the last time Dyckova was this close to an eagle was at the Holtsville Ecology Center, she quipped.
Photography has become a passion for Dyckova, a graduate of Port Jefferson High School.
“When I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago, I started bringing my boys on hikes and taking nature photos,” said Dyckova, whose sons are 4, 6 and 8 years old. “It was a hobby, and now it’s really a passion.”
Photography and nature helped Dyckova get through her cancer treatment. While she remains on a treatment plan, doctors have told her there is no longer any “evidence of disease,” she said.
Last year at work, fourth-grade students wrote poems that were placed atop nature photos taken by Dyckova. She can’t wait to get back to school on Tuesday and show the kids what she caught on her camera over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
