Fantastic Ending to a Fantastic Day

(January 23rd) It's hard to top a morning like I had today. As long as things went ok, I'd have been happy. I headed to an inland location for ducks. Ducks are one of those bird types that I've routinely had bad luck with, but it was about to change. Since I was planning on coming back several days, the main goal of today was to scout and learn the location, but it wound up being almost non-stop shooting. The most common subject were the Ring-necked Ducks, like this male. Well the coots were more common, but I didn't take very many photos of them.

The ducks were amazing here. I was able to get incredibly close and of course, I was lying on the ground. One of the problems with lakes and ponds is that the banks to the water are usually sloped down. I was able to find a few spots with the right light direction and relatively flat to get low. Like most ducks, the Ring-necked Ducks show a strong sexual dimporphism. This is what the females look like.

It wasn't just the Ring-necked Ducks out here. There were a lot of species - some more shy than others. Among the favorites were the male Wood Ducks. The vibrant colors they show are just plain amazing. Exposure on all the ducks (especially the Ring-neckeds) is really tricky. I didn't blow any of the whites, but that often meant that there was some detail lost in the dark range. And this is with very soft direct light. With shade, the light would have less of a dynamic range, but you'd also get less of that nice iridescence in the feathers... A tricky problem.

The ducks got pretty used to me and began to ignore me and perform their normal behaviors. There was a lot of pruning going on. Especially after a diving session, the Ring-neckeds would need to set some feathers straight. I like the pose of this female.

I got closer that I'd ever been to these species. When I say close, I mean incredibly close. They came so close I couldn't focus. I worked a few close-ups. Sometime I'm going to have figure out a way to show you closer to the full size of the image I'm getting - the detail in the feathers of these birds is astounding. The patterns are much more intricate up close than you normally notice.

One of my favorite shots of the day was when one of the male Wood Ducks popped into a tiny bit of light that was peaking through the trees as the sun was going down. It lit up his head just a little bit to give it that extra pop. Today was such a great day - if every day in San Diego is going to be like this, I'll be in seventh heaven. Today alone I took more photographs than I did on my entire trip to Texas combined.