For the third outing in a row, I spent my time with this charming pair of Blue-winged Teals. I’m not sure how much longer they will stick around for as many of the ducks have already departed for the north. In any case, I’m going to make the best of the opportunity I have. The other two days were mostly overcast, with some very weak light peaking through every once in a while. Today I came upon them in the morning and it was actually a clear day. This means that I have very different angles to work and having to be more particular about what angles are usable – hence a lot more of waiting for these beautiful birds to swim into the right spot.
Blue-winged Teal
As usual, I had a great time with these two Blue-winged Teal, but I have shown so many photos of these birds over the last few entries, that I think I am running the risk of boring you. While working the teal, the American Coots swam past. This one had quite a content look on its face.
American Coot
As the morning continued, I left my favorite teal to see if I could find anything else. I had a little bit of luck with some Northern Shovelers in another spot. There were a lot more shy than the teals, but I had some cattails for cover that I could use to get close. While photographing the shovelers, this Common Moorhen popped out of the cattails right in front of me. They look similar to and are related to the coots, but they are year-round residents in South Carolina and their bright orange-red beaks contrast with the white beaks of the coots.
Common Moorhen
A quick look at the same spot I found a very cooperative pair of Blue-winged Teals showed me that they were there again. This time they were on the opposite side of the water, but I crawled my way into the same general location that I used before. It was the same time of day, so the light would be coming from the same direction. Early on, there were some American Coots around feeding in front of me. The overcast day made it easy to pull out the feather details in these birds.
American Coot
After photographing the coots for a while, the Blue-winged Teals swam across the water to right in front of me. As before, these two friendly ducks were fearless and scarcely acknowledged my presence. They spent most of their time dabbling, feeding pretty continuously. That’s why the female here was all wet although their feathers do a great job of keeping the water on the outside.
Blue-winged Teal
There are different kinds of ducks out there and the different kinds have very different ways of feeding. The Buffleheads that I was photographing a few days ago are diving ducks. The Blue-winged Teals are dabblers. Dabblers mean that they stick just their heads under the water and dabble with their beaks to find submerged food. This leads to the classic image of a duck with its tail sticking up in the air. You’ll never see that from a diving duck, but dabblers like teals (including the ubiquitous Mallard) do it frequently. After dabbling for a while, the ducks need to fix their feathers which is what this drake was doing here.
Blue-winged Teal
As I mentioned before this pair of Blue-winged Teals was inseparable. They would stray at most a few feet from each other. Most of the time it seemed like the female was leading and the male would notice that she had gone a few feet away and he would rush to catch up to her. Sounds like some other species I know 🙂
Blue-winged Teal
Luck comes in droves. Sometimes bad, sometimes good. The only way to beat luck is to play the numbers game. If you’re doing everything right, keep trying and hoping and eventually you’ll get results. Today the luck started raining on me for ducks. It was a situation I almost passed up. There were two Blue-winged Teals feeding at the water’s edge. But there was absolutely no cover and the land had a very steep slope down to the water. Usually in these circumstances you have about zero chance of being able to approach a subject. But something told me to get out and give it a go. I rarely flush my subjects. But you can tell with experience if a bird is nervous by looking for behavior details. I was astounded when I got out of the car and the ducks practically ignored me.
Blue-winged Teal
From the last shot, you can tell that I was able to approach the ducks. It was surprisingly easy. Sure there was 45 minutes of crawling on my stomach pushing the tripod in front of me a few inches at a time, but this is the kind of situation that is normally impossible. After I got to a certain point, I just settled down and started photographing. After all, there was absolutely no cover and the ducks knew I was there. But after a few minutes, they swam right up to me, passing within 5 feet of where I was. Totally amazing… I think I owe some of it to the coots. Anytime some birds are at ease with your presence, it relaxes the other birds.
Blue-winged Teal
This area had a lot of stuff in the water making for backgrounds that weren’t the cleanest, but I wasn’t going to quibble over it and made do the best I could. This was the closest I’ve been to Blue-winged Teals and the amount of detail in their feathers is astonishing. Unfortunately, the small images on the web don’t do it justice.
Blue-winged Teal
Blue-winged Teals stick together very tightly as pairs. Most of my time was spent waiting for a duck to separate a little from the pair or for both birds in the pair to create an attractive composition. As the evening progressed, the ducks stopped feeding and found a place to rest among the vegetation.
Blue-winged Teal
In the end, the ducks just feel asleep a few feet from me. I kept photographing until the light faded away. Eventually I was forced to say goodbye and slowly crawl away, leaving the ducks resting undisturbed. There are always skittish birds and brave birds within every species. For some species, you feel very fortunate when you encounter a friendly bird.
Blue-winged Teal
Loggerhead Shrikes were everywhere in Savannah National Wildlife Refuge over the fall. I’d see at least one every day and sometimes up to four. It was the same in the early winter, but as winter went on, the birds must have found somewhere else to go. I also never had the best luck photographing this species. Since they are relatively skittish, most of my attempts were from inside the car. This worked fairly well, but the shrikes were always on the most jumbled perch or a fence post. And even then the light usually was coming from a poor direction. Today luck was on my side, both to find a Loggerhead Shrike so late and to get the beautiful bird on a nice perch.
Loggerhead Shrike
I had some luck with some ducks as well. The ducks are starting to leave for their trip north, so of course they wait until now to cooperate. I’m not complaining though. I spent a bit of time with this beautiful iridescent Northern Shoveler drake.
Northern Shoveler
The big flocks of ducks can be hard to work as they tend to fly off at the slightest hint of danger, especially when the eagles are hunting them so heavily. If you’re in a blind, you can have some luck, but at Savannah NWR the ducks vary their patterns so much that you may wait all day in a blind and never see a duck. It’s the small groups or solo birds that you have the best chances with. This Northern Shoveler drake was with two females and they were feeding at one end of a marshy section. A slow and careful approach through the cattails got me close to the birds for a magical end to the day. I’m going to miss the ducks when they’re all gone in less than a month.
Northern Shoveler