Pretty interesting how the grey of the bird matches the bridge, Dan, although I am not sure the BG actually complements the duck. Nice flight pose and great job getting it sharp.
Too bad you didnt get him going past anything better. Even a solid water color would have been great because you caught him in a cool pose and he is nice and sharp too. Great color. Keep shooting, it will come.
Excellent flight shot of a really beautiful bird. Wood ducks always look great to me swimming along, but catching him in flight with this great pose really adds to the image. Echoing what the others have already said, the only improvement would be the background. If this were mine I would try to change the BG to take that distraction away - layer masks to separate the wood duck and background from one another, then blur the background significantly or maybe even drop in a nice soft background with tones that match well. But even with the BG that you got this is a great shot.
Hi Dan, tack sharp where it counts, and you have exposed the colours nicely. Its not often that these guys are captured in flight, as they seem quite happy to swim contently around ponds.
It's tough when you nail everything that you can on your part and the bg doesn't cooporate. It's a lovely image, but that bg just doesn't do it justice.
Head is beautifully sharp, and the flight position is interesting. Well done to catch him in flight. I agree with above comments about the BG; I'm wondering if painting out the bright central stripe might mitigate it a bit, if you are OK with that sort of thing.
I guess I am so used to the bridge I sort of liked it as a BG.
The lake/pond where I take all my duck photos is actually a private garden open to the public.
The bridge is one of the main architectural features in the garden.