SHOW ME A PICTURE OF BIRD. FREE THEME
Hey, @nelinoeva. How's things?
I haven't shared my bird photos in a long time. I haven't seen anything new or interesting about bird life for a long time, so I haven't written a single post on this topic for several months. Last weekend brought me a surprise!
It was an ordinary Saturday morning when I was walking my dog towards the river. My Nora loves to run and that's why it scared away a lot of ducks, ordinary mallard ducks. In spring, ducks are very shy and won't let anyone get close to them. Of course, I took a Nikon D5300 with a Tamron 18-400mm lens with me for bird meetings, but during the whole walk I didn't have a good opportunity to take photos of birds.
The water level in the river is already sinking, every day the water is getting smaller by 10-20cm. That's why I went to the river on the summer route. I walked along the shore to the forest and headed back home. I usually take the dog on a leash when I leave the river, but this time I decided to give her the opportunity to run. I passed by a small pond, which is formed by melting snow and disappears in summer, when 2 ducks flew out of the grass. It was my dog that scared them. I thought they would fly away like all the previous ones, but they landed on the other side of the pond. There was something strange and unusual about them. I decided to take a look at them through the camera lens.
That's right, it is! These were no ordinary mallard ducks. I've never seen anything like this before.
The distance to the ducks was great. I took a large number of photos at a focal length of 400mm. The thought came to my mind that the result would not be very good, because in this mode the lens often loses its clarity from flinching. I started shooting at a shorter focal length, hoping for post-processing in Photoshop (Many thanks to @melinda010100).
The drake had an unusual color and I even thought it was some kind of mutation. But the neck height was also shorter than that of drakes with green-blue heads. The mother duck was an ordinary gray coloring and I wouldn't even pay attention to her.
Already at home, I analyzed the photos, searched for information from the photos and got the result - this is Eurasian Wigeon
What other information did I learn about this duck?
A river duck characterized by long wings, a pointed tail, a short neck and a beak. Pronounced sexual dimorphism: the male has a brown-chestnut head, yellowish forehead, wine-red chest, white shoulders, and a shiny green "mirror" on the wings; the female has gray-brown plumage with dark speckles and a gray-black "mirror".
Living environment. This river duck breeds in marshlands, peat bogs and on lake islands. It chooses the shores of the seas and other salty reservoirs as a wintering place.
The habitat is definitely not suitable for this place. Last year, in the spring, I met a couple of swans on a lake in the valley, but they were there for only one day. Probably, these ducks also stopped only for a short time on this lake. They are lucky that the period of permitted spring hunting is over.
Next time I'll tell you about a woodpecker who lives on the territory of my daughter's country house. I had 6 days to observe him. And it was fun.
With love @apnigrich
Good luck and have fun
@apnigrich
