Phil’s family is growing up rapidly. I think all four ducklings are drakes now, which means we could have some interesting dominance contests coming up.
Good luck picking out Phil in this photo! He’s in total eclipse, and two of his sons are bigger than he is. Their mother is the big duck in the middle. I am beginning to think she is a wild mallard/Rouen cross, just because of her great size.
This one will be a classic greenhead. I almost guarantee it.
This one is very dark, so it’s difficult to see what color this one will mature into.
I don’t want to count my eggs before they’ve hatched. Especially with this duck, who has had four nest failures this summer.
But she’s currently brooding 11 eggs. Maybe there will be hen ducklings in that clutch!
I used to raise Mallards and Black East Indies (BEI) ducks. In the spring I would take a bunch of Black East Indies eggs and travel through the marshes bordering a river called Dead Creek in my canoe, checking out the wild Mallard nests, and switching the Black East Indies eggs for Mallard eggs. I’d take the Mallard eggs home and hatch them under Black East Indies hens, giving me truly wild Mallard stock. During the summer I’d watch the wild Mallards raise the Black East Indies ducklings. By late summer the wild-raised BEI could fly as well as their truly wild brethren, and would migrate with them in the fall. I’m sure many duck hunters along the Atlantic Flyway thought they’d shot a rare, melanistic Mallard during duck season, since none of the BEI ever returned in the spring.
Those are gorgeous ducks!
Nice duck photos. What type of camera do you use?
Canon PowerShot SX160 IS
Would you recomment that type of camera? I am trying to decide what type of camera to buy to take nature, landscape, and travel photos. I have only used point & shoot cameras, so i dont want to have to monkey with the focus – and if i was manually setting the focus, it would be “monkeying” with it.
‘Fraid im not much of a techie. But i would like to have nice phootos for a trip i want to take – if all works out as planned.
I saw that some cameras at the store say that they connect directly to the internet, that sounds good. Many dont say they take video too, which i assued they would by now.
Your pictures look very good, any photography advice?
It’s a good beginner camera.
Just practice.