Getting Closer: Wood Duck

When trying to capture good portraits of wildlife nothing can take the place of getting close. Wood Ducks have been particularly challenging for me as our woodies know all too well that humans mean trouble.

Visiting the wetland Saturday morning I concealed myself reasonably well by wearing camo and hiding in the surrounding vegetation. After a wait of over an hour a pair of wood ducks swam rapidly across the small opening while a cloud passed across the sun. Disappointed but not discouraged I continued my wait and was soon rewarded when this lone drake swam into the open less than twenty yards away providing me with my best wood duck portrait to date.

I had only time to fire a few frames until he noticed something was amiss and lifted his crest in alarm. Moments later he was airborne, the entire encounter only lasted a few seconds but that was all it took to captured a couple of memorable images.

Note: Betsy in Tennessee was kind enough to direct me to her recent Northern Flicker post in a comment on my Camera Critters post. What I assumed to be a courtship display apparently was a mating dispute between two males. There were other flickers in the area perhaps the female was among them but upon leaving this perch both of the “boys” flew off together. Go figure :)