Autumn at the Pond - Hooded Mergansers.

[Daniel Cadieux]

This most cooperative pair of young Hooded Mergansers were lots of fun to photograph...so here is another image of them, this time in a pretty autumnal setting. They were both sleeping when this one suddenly decided to stretch it's wings. I was certain it was going to jump into the water (which is just beyond the frame at the bottom of the image) but it just tucked its head right back into its feathers and proceeded to snooze some more :-) This was before my slow crawl for portraits posted previously.

Canon 7D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/640s., f/7.1, ISO 800 (settings histogram checked), natural light, handheld, full-frame. A couple of leaves were near blown so were toned down via burn tool, and a few more strategically removed (clone and patch tools), three blades of grass across the bill also removed via patch tool. Whites opened up via dodge tool and selective color.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Very funny pose here. It does surely look like he is getting ready to slide down the bank into the water!

I really like the eye and feather detail. The leaves and and dry looking grass fix the time frame nicely.

In a perfect world, perhaps a slightly looser crop to show the waters edge, but hard to get it all, and you would lose detail in the bird.

It really neat that you good to experience these young ones up close (because of your crawling efforts)

Cheers

Randy

[Karl Egressy]

Interesting pose captured here, Daniel. Love the details and the grassy sorounding.

[Stu Bowie]

Hey Dan, Im sure your leopard crawling ( from army days ) comes in handy to capture these angles. A different pose from the norm, and I like it. Thats a pretty steep slope, which Im sure they use quite well to get into the water. You have captured excellent feather detail.

[Tom Rambaut]

Love it - the pose, the green glass and those yellow leaves. Made me smile this one.