Yippee!

[Bill Dix]

Following up on Gail's RB Merganser hen, here's a drake showing his antics. In this case there was a female nearby, so this might not have been just for fun, although she wasn't paying much attention. This is the same unfortunate bird I posted yesterday, with the broken upper mandible. Also the same dull sky, which made the dark head absorb all the light without releasing much detail. Some experimenting with a reverse S-curve, and a little dodging, brought out a little detail but not much. Tomorrow I'll post a final image of this guy taken 10 minutes later when the sky brightened up -- it made all the difference.

D7000, 700mm, ISO 800, 1/1600s @ f/6.3 manual, tripod

[Karl Egressy]

I was wondering if the beak could regenerate itself.
Nice image Bill, I like the pose.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Hey Bill,

I didn't get a chance to comment on your last post, although I did go through it. Great job on creating the bill from your archives!

I think the pose here is a bit more dynamic, and I enjoy the overall action a bit more. I could see some cropped off the top, possibly a 16:9 aspect ratio (seems to be my go-to for birds in water).

Not much you can do about the lighting here, but I'm very excited to see your next post!

Miguel

[Bill Dix]

I was wondering if the beak could regenerate itself.
Nice image Bill, I like the pose.

I wondered the same thing, Karl, and googled the question. I got conflicting answers, but the most reliable source said that broken bills cannot regenerate.

[vishaljadhav]

Lovely action , i think you nailed this guy pretty well
i am waiting for the next in the series where the light was better as you said, this one is so good i wonder what you got later

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice pose and nice crop. Shows the broken beak well. Looking forward to the next one.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks everyone. I'll post #3 in the series momentarily.