{"id":158441,"date":"2024-05-07T05:53:15","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T11:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=158441"},"modified":"2024-05-07T07:16:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T13:16:04","slug":"mating-cinnamon-teals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/07\/mating-cinnamon-teals\/","title":{"rendered":"Mating Cinnamon Teals"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sure many of us have seen mating ducks before but until three days ago I’d only photographed Cinnamon Teals mating one other time. And not this well.<\/p>\n

This past Saturday on a trip to the west desert I noticed a lone pair of Cinnamon Teals on a small pond. They were the only ducks on the pond and at first they were far away from each other so I wasn’t even sure they were a mated pair.<\/p>\n

But after a few minutes, as if on some secret signal that only they understood, they started swimming directly and purposely toward each other. I wasn’t sure what might happen but I tried to keep at least one of them in my viewfinder just in case it was something interesting.<\/p>\n

Like mating perhaps? After all, it’s that time of year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With no preliminaries that I noticed, other than repeated head-pumping by the male, the female lowered her head onto the water in solicitation. The drake responded by climbing onto her back.<\/p>\n

For the first 10 seconds or so of the mating they both had their backs to me so I’m not including any of those photos.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But eventually they were broadside to me and, typical of many ducks when they’re mating, the male had a firm grip on some of the feathers on the back of her head. He never let go of those feathers during the entire lengthy mating process.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At times it almost looked like he was…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

trying to drown her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eventually, after the deed was done, he dismounted. Awkwardly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But even after he was off of her back, he was reluctant to let go of her head feathers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When she finally did escape she made a quick getaway.<\/p>\n

For a few seconds she bathed, with all or most of her body underwater. In Cinnamon Teals it’s typical for both sexes to bathe after copulation but this time the male chose not to do so. He didn’t flap his wings either.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But the female did, repeatedly, as the nonchalant male watched. Wings forward…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

wings back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Three different and distinct times she flapped her wings. Here she was so enthusiastic about it she almost lifted completely out of the water.<\/p>\n

It was exciting for all three of us while it lasted but when it was over it was literally and figuratively anticlimactic. So I drove on down the road to look for other birds.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note: Image techs for this series were at or close to 1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sure many of us have seen mating ducks before but until three days ago I’d only photographed Cinnamon Teals mating one other time. And not this well. (10 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,357,391],"tags":[7444,4552,7443,6849,311],"class_list":["post-158441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-cinnamon-teals","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-female-solicitation-pose","tag-head-pumping","tag-mating-cinnamon-teals","tag-spatula-cyanoptera","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/cinnamon-teal-6259-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Fdv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158485,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158441\/revisions\/158485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}