Northern Pintail drake
Yesterday I had a few spares hours while I was down in the big city of Toronto, Ontario. During the winter months, I love to spend as much time as possible over at Humber Bay Park along the Lake Ontario shoreline to photograph wintering ducks. It can be a great place to see Long-tailed , Scaup, Redhead, Wood, Black, and of course Mallard ducks. On some occasions it is possible to see Harlequin Ducks and other varieties as they pass through during the migration periods. With this winter being a little odd weather wise I was pleased to see a rather cooperative Pintail Drake hanging out with the resident Mallards. Whenever I plan to photograph at Humber Bay I always take along a pail of premium duck feed. Since the seeds and kernels of corn in this premium duck feed sink, the ducks must tip-up or dive down for the food. After they do this a few times they will always do several wing flaps. Although it is good practice to have a few documentary-type images, I much prefer to capture the waterfowl doing something other than floating on the water – behavior shots if you will. I also find the feeding frenzy created by the resident Mallards is a good way to bring in the duck species that are a little more timid.
This was a dark dreary kind of day and i would have much preferred some sun to make the duck’s colours really pop, but nonetheless it felt good to finally get out and create some fresh waterfowl images for my collection. Because of the dark weather conditions I decided to play around with some fill flash to try and gain a little pop to the resulting images.
Hope you like them.
Northern Pintail drake wing flap
Black Duck drake
Mallard hen wing flap
Andrew McLachlan 