This week's theme (ROUND 270)
SHOW ME A PICTURE OF BIRD. FREE THEME
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.
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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.
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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 
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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.
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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.
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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.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy (C) Bobby McFerrin
With love
Good luck and have fun
