Ruddy Duck Hens

A couple of weeks ago I encountered a Ruddy Duck drake while visiting the lake and featured him on an earlier post. This past Saturday I bumped into a flock of hens. I don’t know if the hens and drakes migrate at different times or if this is purely coincidence.

A heavy coating of pollen along with the lighting angle created the unusual appearance of the water’s surface shown in this image.

Lonely Little Ruddy Duck

I spied a lone Ruddy Duck male on the lake Friday morning. As I had never captured a good image of a Ruddy before I made an extra effort to approach him. I soon found this was no easy task for like a Grebe he would slip under the surface only to reappear quite some distance away.

I would have loved to have gotten closer but I am content with this image captured with the Canon 30D and a 100mm-400mm L lens.