ML611608617

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

very cute ducks, some of my favorites today and only my second time seeing them!! a group of 47 that I counted was sleeping together a bit south of the boardwalk in the center of the lake. just read that many ruddy ducks forage at night and sleep quite a lot during the day, so that probably explains that group's behavior. nevertheless there was still a lot of active ruddy ducks at the north of the boardwalk, many of them diving and foraging. unlike other diving ducks such as mergansers however, seems like ruddy ducks can also dive in very shallow sections that are very close to the edge of lakes; while I was at the northeastern observation deck (for both the first and second time), I observed a ruddy duck foraging and diving near other green winged teals that were foraging. the duck would dive down for about 20 seconds , before resurfacing and diving back again. the first time I was at the deck, the ruddy duck there took a break between its dives giving an opportunity for some pretty good photos, but the second duck i saw there was diving all the time - likened to a person swimming, where you would only take a very brief breath before going underwater. seems like the duck was very eager to forage and didn't want to waste time above water, as it dived down again and again, barely surfacing for 1 second, just a quick blur of the duck coming up, probably taking a brief breath before rolling back down in the water. I had plenty of opportunity to observe how they dived, they plunge down headfirst with their going underwater first, with their bottom going in last, very cool! I also observed the first time at this observation point a ruddy duck dabbling, where it would swim constantly with its beak just slightly above the water for about 10 meters. very interesting, seems like these ducks do a mix of dabbling and diving foraging; the shape of their bill which is very flat and wide also makes it suitable for them to dabble, which is quite cool. although I believe that their primary method of foraging is still diving.

Technical information

Model

ILCE-7M3

Lens

100-400mm F5-6.3 DG DN OS | Contemporary 020

ISO

320

Focal length

348.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/400 sec

Dimensions

3299 pixels x 2178 pixels

Original file size

3.43 MB