Muscovy Duck

[Robert Holguin]

Hello everyone. Well I was up before the sun was up the other day and headed over to the nearest lake. To my luck there was nothing to photograph but this duck. It let me get pretty close and the following is what I came up with.
Camera - Nikon 300s, Lense - Nikon 200-400, Exposure - 1/400, Aperture - F8, ISO - 320, Focal Length 340mm, Metering - Multi Segment, Manual.

[Randy Stout]

Robert:

The side lighting give nice modeling to the duck, gives it a sense of form, rich saturated colors.

I might try a version cropped up just above your sig to keep the mass of the breast and head in better proportion.

The two little drops towards the right edge are a nice detail.

I am seeing some color noise in the blue background. Checked on two monitors. Unexpected at this ISO.

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Nice light and a great cropping suggestion from Randy. This is not a Muscovy Duck--they are basically black and dark green with a rather squared off head. This is some sort of barnyard duck.

[Robert Holguin]

Thank you both very much for your comments. Much appreciated.

Arthur - From looking around different sites there are all white color morphs of muscovy ducks. The most common of course is the one you described.

[Arthur Morris]

With all due respect I am thinking that folks at other sites may be totally wrong. Perhaps your bird has some Muscovy genes in it but I am 99.99% sure that it is a barnyard duck. If there were a white morph it would be mentioned prominently in the Sibley Guide....

[Robert Holguin]

Arthur - I don't mean any disrespect. I cannot and do not have the experience and knowledge that you have. I just went by what I researched.
What sites do you recommend to id birds? I use audubon guides app for my android and whatbird.com.
Again I apologize for any disrespect.

Thanks.

[Arthur Morris]

No problema at all Robert. Any decent field guide would be great. I'd recommend either the Sibley Guide to Birds or the Audubon Guide to the Birds of North America (John Dunn as main author but not positive of the title). I'd be leery of the on-line stuff or the apps. Both Sibley and Dunn are widely respected.... Just checked RIchard Crossley's new book (The Crossley ID Guide) and he does show a white variation but clearly states that birds with white in the plumage are feral, aka, barnyard ducks escaped from captivity and now breeding. So you might be partially right .