ducks at a distance

Another title for this post might be, Why it is useful having a zoom lens.! We visited with our daughter on Wednesday and she drove us around her community of Quispamsis looking for ducks. We found some, but they were a distance away, difficult to identify. see the white speck midway in the upper half of the picture? (ducks! yes!) We were guessing, Common Goldeneye or Common Merganser, both males of this species have a white body. As I had my Canon 55-250 mm zoom lens , I wasn't too worried about learning of their id. It turns out after downloading and cropping, there were two ducks there, not one.It was a pair of Common Goldeneye, The female of this species has a brown head and the characteristic white dot on the face (cheek) of the male can easily be seen. And the white of the body was that of the male common Goldeneye. ID solved.

Another pair of ducks didn't give us too much of a problem. In this watery location above you can still see ice on the water and along the shore in the forefront. the opposite treed shore is reflected in the water. Can you see the trail of water made by two ducks in the lower mid section of the picture? ducks? Yes!, but what species, not a big problem to solve. The ducks were a pair of Mallards!

Its fun hunting for ducks!Thanks for the duck finding Riel! and the great day we had.