Sunday, April 10, 2011

Oh Mallard!

After Saturday's bike ride I went back to the place where I had seen the swans in hope of taking some shots of them but the swans had left the building. Wasted some time shooting some mallards as compensation for the missing swans.

The sun was setting and the birds a bit shy, had planned to bring some old bread to lure them closer but forgot it at home.
Some was reluctant to leave their spots.
But as I got closer most of them swam away or took to flight.
Got a lot of practice to shoot BIF:s (Birds In Flight), at one point the birds passed the sun, I can tell you that getting a direct look at the sun (despite it was setting) through a 300mm lens with a TC was like getting a electric chock! I was blind on my right eye for a while.

After I scared the ducks I wanted to scare some larger birds so I did the same with some Canada Geese's! ;)
Now over to something slightly different, for those that might get slightly nauseated from looking at animals eating other animals might want to finish up what ever they are eating right now!

On the way back to the car to defrost my ears I spotted one of the ducks ferociously picking and handling something in the water with it's bill. Thought it had found a large piece of bread or something that it was making in to smaller bits...

As I got close I noticed it was a frog!
The frog seemed as dead as it could be but the mallard kept pounding it against the ice edge.
Wonder if it thought the frog would fall into smaller pieces eventually, it just kept on going at the frog!
I got really close since the mallard was completely occupied with the frog but finally the bird noticed me and carried the "catch" away with him.
By now my already cold ears were frozen solid in the cold wind and I had to give up. That display was not what I had expected when shooting mallards!

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