Figure 1 – Male Mallard, Little Fresh Pond, Fresh Pond Reserve, Cambridge, MA April 2015. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

The other day I was walking around a still frozen Fresh Pond in Cambridge, MA and I was wondering just how long it would take the ducks to return after the melt.  The answer is not long at all.  Maybe there’s a link on Travelocity for ducks to check the ice conditions, like snow conditions for skiers.  But no sooner than a significant amount of water opened up, but the water fowl returned.  So far these have included, Mallards, Canadian geese, Herring gulls, American coots, and cormorants.  Yesterday I tried to photograph a coot on a nasty rainy day.  I succeeded in obtaining a grey picture of a grey bird, swimming and diving in grey water that reflected a grey sky.  The grey-test  but not the greatest of photographs.  I did however, find a beautiful male mallard (Anas platyrhyncus) posing and preening himself on a log – clearly to impress the nearby lady mallard.  Mallards are our most common duck, but still beautiful because of their iridescent green heads and the patch of blue on their wings.  As for Figure 1, I am happy with the pose, the scenery, and with the reflection of the bird in the pond.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture-priority AE mode, 1/640th sec at f/10.0, with +1 exposure compensation.