The odd couple...

The temperature rises and the sun comes out: the first real spring day in my book, and I have plans to visit a local pond to photograph the ducks. For the past few years I have made repeated visits to the site since in its small area there can be found several species of duck as well as the occasional grey heron, but today I was slightly disappointed by the low turnout of waterfowl. I count a mere five bobbing about, and not a hint of heron - or Black-headed gulls come to that - ubiquitous as they are. However, my favourite residents are still there.

It is an odd pairing, to say the least, but the Tufted Duck (right) and the Ferruginous Duck (below) seem to have struck up a stable but out of species relationship. Both are male birds and therefore not a breeding pair, but it appears to have lasted several years.

I'm trying out a new bit of kit today, given to me by my friend Nic, for Christmas: a folding stool. Compact and light weight, it is the first chance I have had to use it in the field and it served its purpose superbly, allowing me to sit comfortably for well over an hour (I could have gone longer but I had another location on the agenda). Now, instead of crouching or (worse still) kneeling for extended periods on the ground with the camera on a monopod I am able to use a tripod at a convenient height to support a super-telephoto lens. That, coupled with a ball head on the tripod that has friction control, and I have never had such a high a ratio of sharp images from a shoot of this kind.

300mm f/2.8 AF-S VR Nikkor. 

Top: 1/1600 second at f/4.  - 1 stop EV compensation

Left: 1/1600 at f/5.6. - 0.67 EV compensation. ISO 320. Tripod and ball head.

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