Figure 1 – Gadwall ducks, Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Slowly, the ducks are returning to Fresh Pond.  So far this summer there have been mostly Canada geese (Branta Canadensis). But then last week there was the beautiful black duck (Anas rubripes) that I photographed and then this past Tuesday I was walking along the path and spotted a group of Gadwall ducks (Anas strepera) swimming against an active pond with great determination.  The Gadwall is not that common in Massachusetts. So I guess that I should be cautious about my identification. And I welcome correction from readers. What the guide books do say, is that if you see a group of “mallards” (Anas platyrhynchos) without any green heads (characteristic of males) then they are probably gadwalls as opposed to a group of female mallards. Figure 1 is an attempt to photograph them.  The image does not meet my usual standards of sharpness, although the middle duck, the one I was focusing on, came out reasonable sharply.  But the back-lighting of a cloudy sky just didn’t give me what I wanted.

I have been pondering this image quite a bit. While sacrificed in sharpness, I really like the stop action.  There is to my eye a real sense of motion against both wave and a strong head wind. The image seems almost to be a watercolor with subtle pastels, and that is in its own right very pleasing. So I’ll leave it as an experiment and let you decide.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 184 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/3200th sec at f/7.1 with +1 exposure compensation