Follow me Boys

[Bob Smith]

This amorous pair of drake pintails were doing their best to look their best for this pretty little hen.7D MII;EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 MII @182mm;ISO1250;f/5.6;1/640;

[annmpacheco]

Everyone sure looks handsome and pretty here and i love the raindrops on the pintails. nice focus for the trio but I'm afraid the angle and how tightly they are positioned in the frame distracts me overall.

[Gerhard Weldhagen]

Lots of detail on the birds and focus looks good. The high angle does not work for me.

[Grace Scalzo]

Nice...great species to photograph. To my eye, cropping this from the top to more of a pano makes it more pleasing to my eye. I like the rain droplets and hint of green on the one drake's back.

[Bob Smith]

Thanks for commenting everyone. There wasn't much I could do about the positioning as I was on a steep bank above them in the Reifel Refuge marsh. I actually prefer this angle anyway as I got the close proximity (something I'm always trying to look for and achieve in shots of more than one bird, whether flight or land/water setting) while still revealing the whole body of the back drake, whereas getting down low would have screened him behind the front one.I agree Grace that the green wing speculum on the rear drake is a nice flash of colour amidst the subdued palette found on pins--the front bird probably covered the green with the flair of his back feathers in his attempts to impress the lady bird. I use the pano presentation a lot but it hadn't occurred to me to do so here, so I followed your suggestion and think it works well.

[gail bisson]

Lovely trio. I am super jealous of you pintail images because this bird is my nemesis duck and I have yet to get a good picture of one.
Love that you got 3 tack sharp in the frame and Grace's advice re: crop is spot on.
The angle is a bit high but you are right that if you had been lower the rear male would have been blocked off by the front duck.
Gail

[Bob Smith]

Thank you Gail---we are indeed blessed with a plenitude of pintails around here---I have some lovely family shots I'll put up someday.