Not often a shoveler will allow me to get this close, but a juvenile pied bill grebe and this shoveler were using the company of mallards to make bold. The reservation has built up pathways, so lying prone on the embankment was as low as I could get. Light a little harsher than I would have liked, but later in the day when the light was better he took a nap.
D800E 500mm 1.4x iso 640 1/2000 f5.6 manual handheld
Nice image and you did the best you could with the light.
I find the mallard a bit washed out and would give him a bit of pop by increasing the saturation ever so slightly or maybe warming the image up a bit and then add a couple of points of blacks to the neutrals in selective coloring in CS5.
If not against your ethics , I might be tempted to evict the white oval blob in LUC.
You have described the situation perfectly re: rarer ducks getting brave when hanging out with mallards. Always pays to really look at every "mallard" in the pond. There are often surprises to be seen.
TFS,
Gail
Northern Shoveler
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