Pintail Silhouette

Pintail Silhouettes
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A flock of Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) takes flight into backlit ground fog. Dawn. Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico.

Sometimes, nature photography is just about being in the right place at the right time. As I’ve posted before, I had the great pleasure of shooting in backlit ground fog (“fire in the mist”) conditions at Bosque del Apache for four days this winter. I made more great images in a few morning hours at Bosque than I’ve made in the prior year.

This flock of Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) kept lifting off into the mist (probably scared by the resident bald eagle) wheeling around, landing, and then doing it again.  Spectacular.  To capture this image I carefully checked the exposure, composed for a strong line at the bottom of the frame to ground the image, and tried to give the birds a bit of space to fly into.1

Check out the ducks in the water at right — I love the rows of roosting ducks receding into the mist. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

  1. I may also have been saying “wow” and “ooh” somewhat loudly. That is not strictly required for image making.

Pintail Takeoff

Pintail Takeoff (Image# 100124_1001614)
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Pintail Takeoff (Image# 100124_1001614)

I went looking for ducks on the Platte River this morning. I found a great many ducks but they were remarkably skittish.   I plan to try again with a bind, but even without one I still came away with a couple of reasonably good images, including this photo of a Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) taking flight.  Light levels were too low for sharp images of birds in flight, so I went for a slightly blurred look instead.  As always, click on the image for a larger/sharper version.