Finding Beauty in the Starkness of Nature

On my recent kayak trip to the San Juan Islands, the tour company owner offered me a discount if I would take some photographs for his website, and I happily agreed. While I came up with many lovely shots, I also came up with this series which somehow focus on the starkness of nature.  Here's an osprey nest against a cloudy sky:

Barnacles clinging to a rock:

And a bald eagle, with a blood-tipped beak:

While not your conventional shots of nature's beauty, I still find these compelling. What do you think of them? And for those of you who aren't squeamish, you can click on the jump link and see one more eagle picture (where the eagle is actually eating its prey). I didn't want to post it with the jump because some might find it disturbing.

ETA: I can't seem to get the jump break to work, so I've left some blank space instead.

Let me know in the comments if you ventured here and whether you think this would have been appropriate to post without the jump link. It's a great shot technically (and I'm pretty proud of it), but I didn't want to offend anyone.