My First Northern Shoveler!

[Daniel Cadieux]

• Canon EOS 7D
• EF500mm f/4L IS II USM +1.4x
• ƒ/8
• 700mm
• 1/1600s
• ISO 800
• Daniel Cadieux www.dancadphotography.com
• Flash not fired
• Sun, 25 January 2015 10:35 AM
• Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)

We have an unusual over-wintering duck...unusual for our parts that is. The Northern Shoveler is only normally seen during Spring and Fall migrations, and it is very skittish. I had previously never been closer than about 100 yards of one - and usually 300-400 was more like it. This beautiful fella has been associating with a bunch of mallards in a very small patch of open water. It is also very approachable (coming to within MFD regularly), but difficult to photograph artistically due to the many mallards swimming in the way both in the FG and BG. The best bet is to keep the longest lens on and go for some portraits, which is what I concentrated on doing.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1600s., f/8, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, FF, cloned out more than half the specular highlight on the foot, especially the bigger distracting ones (I kept the rest in to retain the wet look).

 

[dankearl]

Nice up close look.
highlights seem to just cling to Shovelers.
I might get rid of a few more, especially the one on the beak.
Love the foot....

 

[Vanessa caccamise]

Nice portrait.. love the beak and foot!

 

[christopher galeski]

nice image Daniel,like the colors,looks like he is saying high to you,with its raised foot.

 

[John Robinson]

Striking image indeed Dan ! What a foot !!!
John

 

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent portrait, Daniel Sir.
Wonderful colors with great details. I like the tight crop. Excellent IQ.

Regards,
Satish.

 

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

We get shoveler's in Michigan for a few months a year. Generally not terribly shy, but the darn guys just swim around in circles with their bills in the water feeding all the time! The are beautiful however.

I like this one, bold colors, great foot, well exposed with good head turn.

I certainly don't mind a few highlights on the water birds, and think this is a nice balance.

Cheers

Randy

 

[shane shacaluga]

A very unusual pose with an awesome looking paddle!

Excellent IQ and composition

TFS

 

[David Salem]

I'll trade you 500 shovelers for one scrawny snowy owl!! These are our most common migrants and most ponds, lakes and golf courses are filled with them. Even though they are so common here I feel they are one of the most beautiful of all the waterfowl species. Hard to beat a killer drake shoveler for color and form.
Nice looking closeup of this handsome guy and I like the raised foot and the fact that we can see some of the blue and green on the wing. Glad you got to run into this rare migrant for you.
Hope you get more of them soon.

 

[Daniel Cadieux]

David, done deal if the logistics can be figured out...and I'll throw in a couple dozen mallards!

 

[Roy Priest]

Congrats Dan, lovely duck. One of the prettiest I think and you got it with it's head out of the water.:S3: