Gadwall

[John Mack]

This image was created at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Tyre, New York on 5/5/18 at 6:49AM. Image adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hand held, Medium crop.

Canon 5D MarkIV
Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
600mm
ISO 1600
f8.0
1/1600sec

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp. Nice light. Nice duck -- not the easiest species to photograph. The background stick are obviously distracting, especially the ones coming out of the top of the bird's head and back.

with love, artie

ps: I do understand that the place is difficult for photography.

[Steen Torner]

Nice composition using the rule of third and the exposure is fine.
As mentioned by Arthur Morris, I also find the sticks very distracting. If you had moved slightly to the right, the duck could have been without the sticks through the head.
Also, a lower f-number could have blurred the sticks a bit more but probably not sufficient to avoid the distraction.

Regards Steen

[Robert Ainslie]

Nice sharp pic of the bird in lovely light.
I wonder if it would help to ditch the rule-of-thirds and crop slightly more on the left to reduce the distraction of the sticks?

[Bill Dix]

Lovely Gadwall in lovely light. Unfortunately, short of doing some serious photoshoppery, the sticks kill it for me.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Tough situation you had there as you were at the mercy of the background. Good light. Cool duck, one I have not had the pleasure of photographing yet.

[Dorian Anderson]

Beautiful light. The sticks are distracting, as noted.