Ducks today! With babies! These duck photos were taken by reader John Riegsecker, whose notes are indented below:
Some duck photos for your Reader’s Wildlife Photos. Two Wood Duck, and two Mallard shots taken at Waughop Lake in Washington State. The second two are Harlequin ducks taken at Staircase in Olympic National Park. The males in breeding plumage are among our most colorful ducks. In the winter they come down to the Sound in our area, but they breed and nest along rapidly moving water in the Olympic Mountains.
Mallards (Aix platyrhynchos):
Harlequin ducks, whose cool binomial is Histrionicus histrionicus:
Wood ducks (Aix sponsa):
Here are stock photos of the male harlequin duck (top) and wood duck (bottom); they’re taken from Wikipedia:
Nice photos John!
Well done. Did you use a long telephoto lens, or a blind to get these close shots?
I use a 500mm lens, although the Wood Ducks were relatively close to shore.
Love the babies on the lily pads!
Why do the babies end up on the lily pads? Are they bad drivers ya think?
I suspect they just want to use what help they can get in flotation. Those little feet get tired quickly.
These are great photos. What’s in the Harlequin’s mouth? Looks like a stick.
I’d have thought small fish.
Nice photos. Interesting to hear a reference to Waughop Lake. I used to visit it back in the early ’90s, when I lived nearby for a couple years. It had a healthy duck population then too.
Great captures of great subjects, John!