{"id":170572,"date":"2026-01-14T06:06:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=170572"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:26:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:26:30","slug":"female-ring-necked-duck-landing-on-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/14\/female-ring-necked-duck-landing-on-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Ring-necked Duck Landing On Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago I was trying to photograph other birds in flight when my peripheral vision spotted a pair of small ducks coming in fast from my right to land on the water. They turned out to be Ring-necked Ducks, a species that I haven’t seen since about a year ago.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

I barely had time to get my lens on them before they hit the water. Here the bird on the right is sharp but the one on the left is a little soft. The only reason I’m including this photo is to show that there were two birds coming in, which will explain something you’ll see in several of the photos below.<\/p>\n

This is the last shot that had two birds in the frame in flight. The rest of them include only the duck on the right, that I believe is an adult female.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Skimming just above the water’s surface.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Her tail begins to drag in the water.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Touch down.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Water skiing.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Here we begin to see the wake of the duck in front of her and the exact spot where that bird hit the water.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Coming to a stop.<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n

Three frames later the two ducks had joined up.<\/p>\n

I wish they’d been a little closer but if they had been I would have had more difficulty keeping her in the frame. In flight they’re real speedsters.<\/p>\n

Female Ring-necked Ducks can be difficult to distinguish from young males in winter but I believe the duck on the right, the one I followed with my lens, is an adult female and the one on the left is a juvenile. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m out of my league when it comes to identifying the developmental and seasonal stages of Ring-necked Ducks.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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PS – In case you’re wondering, I got my primary computer back from the shop two days ago. Thankfully they didn’t have to replace the hard drive but it still took me most of a day to get it back up and running properly. My computer is a temperamental SOB and no one will ever accuse me of being a computer geek.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

The first time I’ve seen this species since last winter. (8 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170574,"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":[334,3270],"tags":[7908,311],"class_list":["post-170572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ring-necked-duck","tag-adult-female-ring-necked-duck-in-flight","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ring-necked-duck-4664-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-Ina","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170572","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=170572"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170605,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170572\/revisions\/170605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}