Here a Duck, There a Duck, Everywhere a Duck Duck
I admit it. Photographing ducks just didn’t excite me like photographing eagles or herons or cranes or hummingbirds. Until this year.
Birds that we more generally call “waterfowl” are usually winter migrants to Colorado. Some are here year-round but the big flocks happen over the winter months. They’ve always been a good “fallback” subject for me if I can’t find raptors or straggling songbirds in the snow like the Dark-eyed Junco below. That is, until a relatively rare duck showed up last month and changed my perspective on all waterfowl species. (As always, these photographs are best enjoyed at full size by simply clicking on the image)
Above - A Dark-eyed Junco seems to merrily hop in the snow
That uncommon species I’m referring to is called a Long-Tailed Duck. It’s not that no one has ever seen one here before, it’s that I haven’t! Imagine my surprise when I saw one floating by itself during a chance encounter on the South Platte River last month.
Above - A rare Long-tailed Duck floats in the South Platte River with beautiful gold color reflections in the water
Above - The Long-tailed Duck is a diving duck that dives constantly and often stays underwater for 20-30 seconds, making it difficult to photograph
I’ve been stalking this one ever since and it still remains in the same place, swimming back and forth a couple hundred feet while diving constantly for food, primarily amphipods, to eat. The trail by the river is on a steep embankment overlooking the river. Since I always try to get as close to eye level as possible to the birds I’m photographing, that meant I had to bushwhack down the embankment to small patches of level, dry ground to use as vantage points. Well, that didn’t always go so smoothly. Once I slid off a snow-covered rock that I had been sitting on, immersing my pants completely in the freezing water and prematurely ending my shoot for the day. Another time my ankle snagged a stump from a dead bush and broke open the skin, necessitating a long walk back to my car to get antiseptic out of my first aid kit. And yet a third time found me entangled in carelessly left fishing wire, causing me to yell an obscenity that even the Long-tailed Duck found offensive and departed immediately for the rest of the day.
But I wasn’t shut out nor ever seriously injured (except for my pride each time) as I persevered and got rewarded with some shots that I will always cherish.
And it didn’t just end with the Long-tailed Duck. She often swam with Buffleheads, a tiny and very “cute” duck species that is notoriously difficult to photograph in flight due to their blazing speed. Fortunately, I’d often be well-positioned for the Long-tailed Duck so I collaterally got some good shots of “Buffies” zipping by.
Above - Crazy reflections in the water as a Bufflehead flies over the river. It looks like a mirror reflection on top and bottom but the top reflection is from another Bufflehead that was flying above this one
Occasionally I would venture about 500 feet downstream to an adjacent pond where I’d find hundreds of Northern Shovelers, usually in groups of fifty or so each. Occasionally one or two would leave their group and join a nearby one. It is on those short “commuter flights” that I started successfully photographing them. Most people find Shovelers shall we say “unattractive” because of their oversized bills that resemble a, yes, shovel. But they have colorful feathers and if you catch the male in just the right light, its head and neck feather can appear a purple and green prism of colors (their feathers are actually iridescent and not a solid color).
Above - Male Northern Shoveler in flight with just a slice of light on it. The background was in a deep shadow.
I continued my recent string of good luck of waterfowl when in the same day I found both a White-Winged Scoter (very rare) and a Red-breasted Merganser (less rare but uncommon) floating in a patch of open water in an otherwise iced-over reservoir.
Above - This is an uncommon Red-Breasted Merganser that is stretching its wings in the water
But not all waterfowl are ducks. In fact, you’ve heard the saying, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck?”* That’s 99% true except for the American Coot, a duck dead ringer that is a member of the Rail family of birds and is considered a “cousin” of the massively larger Sandhill Crane.
Above - American Coot on the left swims with a Bufflehead. Note the almost chicken-like appearance of the Coot that is NOT a duck
Then there are the not so rare ducks that are plentiful. I was able to get some shots off of some my favorites, usually while stalking my Long-tailed Duck. Here are some of my favorites, all female ducks except for the first one.
Above - Male Common Goldeneye in flight over the river
Above - This is a female Common Merganser checking out its reflection in the river
Well, gotta get back to seeing that Long-tailed Duck before it realizes it shouldn’t be here. Let’s see how creative I can get in humiliating myself this time trying to photograph it!
*Did you know that saying is from a poem written by American poet James Whitcomb Riley in the late 19th century?