The little Hooded Mergansers

Two cute ducks hanging around our neighborhood pond.

I’ve been watching these two little ducks this week. They make a very sweet pair, staying quite close together most of the time and especially lovely in the late day sun!

Often they seem to be totally in sync as they drift around the pond.

I am exhausted watching them fish – they probably dive 20 times for every time they come up with a fish.

I think most people would gravitate towards the male with his striking hood.

But I have been very amused by this female, somehow quite exuberant with an extravagant “head of hair!” She also seems a lot more in charge of the agenda than the male, more likely to determine which direction they will head and when they will fly off. He, in my opinion, seems quite enamored of her!

Finally, for some size perspective, here they are, uncropped, using a 560mm lens.

3 comments

  1. That feedback loop between an artist, her subject, and the tools of the medium distills here moments of such pristine poetic and illustrative clarity. The Art? To capture in the stillness of a single moment the suggestion and presence of movement, i.e., of change, of becoming, of narrative, either the animals’ narratives (as conceived by the human based on science or fancy) or the human narrative. The Art? To capture within the context of movement and narrative movement the single fixed moment.

    Accompanied by such a dear, inimitable, matter-of-fact, philosophic, contemplative, tossed off, jolly, droll, and joyful voice, that as the artist / birder frolics amongst her observations and associations, inside Nature- [at the intersection of extrapolation, opinion (laced with the whimsical), keen observation and biological data] supports the viewer, perhaps a poet or biologist or birder amongst them, to do the same, to muse, to adventure, to awe, and to wonder.

    Also appreciated, this artist’s ability, in certain of the frames scattered throughout the various albums, to manipulate, juxtapose, and blend or isolate the subject into or from, respectively, its environment- to play with (spontaneously or strategically, or both) the fore and far-grounds, and other various elements of composition. The fore “moment” that pulls the viewer in to examine the detailed beauty of these fowl, birds, and animals, vistas, vegetation and flowers, while we are also sent out to reflect upon greater or broader contexts and the myriad relationships therein.

      1. There are a group of us who make merry with the run-on sentence, abuse, overuse and misuse the comma, and ply on the adjectives, with no intention of changing!

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