{"id":1595,"date":"2011-04-05T15:16:58","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T21:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.wordpress.com\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2011-05-30T07:33:39","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T13:33:39","slug":"common-merganser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/05\/common-merganser\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Merganser"},"content":{"rendered":"

This winter I had my first good opportunities with the Common Merganser.\u00a0 A single female in non-breeding plumage spent several weeks at a pond I frequent and even though the lighting was typically marginal while I was there I still got some shots of\u00a0her\u00a0that I like.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Female<\/p>\n

\u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/500, f\/7.1, ISO 640<\/em><\/p>\n

Notice the serrated bill of this fish eating duck –\u00a0a very effective tool for holding on to their\u00a0slippery prey.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Female<\/em><\/p>\n

500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500<\/em><\/p>\n

This duck gave me a variety of interesting poses in the several days I photographed\u00a0her but much of the time she was too far away for a quality shot.\u00a0 This was one of the exceptions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Female<\/em><\/p>\n

500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/400, f\/7.1, ISO\u00a0640<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I had a difficult time getting light in the eye while she was preening.\u00a0 Here’s one image where I succeeded.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Female<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO\u00a0500<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m convinced that the reason this merganser\u00a0hung around the pond for as long as it did is because she was an accomplished thief.\u00a0 The pond had a resident population of about a dozen Pied-billed Grebes and those grebes are very good fishermen.\u00a0 I seldom saw the merganser actively fishing but whenever a grebe caught a fish this duck was\u00a0instantly in pursuit in an effort to steal the fish –\u00a0which is just what she’s doing in this shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Female<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO\u00a0400<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

I was often amused by the variety of positions the merganser\u00a0could hold\u00a0her crest – from slicked back and conforming to the back\u00a0of the head to \u00a0angled forward and everywhere inbetween.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Female<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

This is perhaps my favorite shot of this female.\u00a0 I like the light on the face, the eye contact and the colors in the water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One day I’d love to get some photos of this species in breeding colors but that’s not likely to happen since their breeding territory is\u00a0mostly\u00a0north of me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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

This winter I had my first good opportunities with the Common Merganser.\u00a0 A single female in non-breeding plumage spent several weeks at a pond I frequent and even though the lighting was typically marginal while I was there I still got some shots of\u00a0her\u00a0that I like. \u00a0 \u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/500, f\/7.1, ISO 640 Notice the serrated bill of this fish eating duck –\u00a0a very effective tool for holding on to their\u00a0slippery prey.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500 This duck gave me a variety of interesting poses in the several days I photographed\u00a0her but much of the time she was too far away for a quality shot.\u00a0 This was one of the exceptions.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/400, f\/7.1, ISO\u00a0640\u00a0 \u00a0I had a difficult time getting light in the eye while she was preening.\u00a0 Here’s one image where I succeeded. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO\u00a0500 I’m convinced that the reason this merganser\u00a0hung around the pond for as long as it did is because she was an accomplished thief.\u00a0 The pond had a resident population of about a dozen Pied-billed Grebes and those grebes are very good fishermen.\u00a0 I seldom saw the merganser actively fishing but whenever a grebe caught a fish this duck was\u00a0instantly in pursuit in an effort to steal the fish –\u00a0which is just what she’s doing in this shot.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0500mm, 1.4 tc, 1\/1600, f\/7.1, ISO\u00a0400 I was often amused by the variety of positions the merganser\u00a0could hold\u00a0her crest – from slicked back…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[348],"tags":[92,99,142,216,232,251,275],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-common-mergansers","tag-common-merganser","tag-crest","tag-fish-eating-duck","tag-merganser","tag-non-breeding-plumage","tag-pied-billed-grebe","tag-serrated-bill"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-pJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}