Wood Ducks are very strong and swift flyers, but a strong head-on wind somewhat slowed down the speed of trajectory and aided in getting good flight images. It was rather easy to predict when the male would take to the air as the female always took off first...a sure sign her mate would follow seconds later.
Canon 30D + 100-400L @260mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/2000s., f/6.3, ISO 640 (settings histogram checked), natural light, handheld, about 80% FF + canvas added left and bottom, and cropped top and right.
NIce shot I really like the background, it works great with the colors of the woody.. I like to see more back ground in front of the bird for flight shots. Just so I understand you added background to image that was not thier. this is a real keeper.
What a wonderful shot, Daniel. Such great clarity but for the wing blur of course, which gives great sense of the movement. Really nice light. I can imagine this is a hard shot to get, so great job!
This may be the first wood duck in flight Ive seen on the site, so well done on that point. I do like the show of all the colours against the lighter BG, and am surprised you didnt manage to freeze the wing movement more, with a ss of 1/2000. A fine image Dan.