ML613033459

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

A female. Seen here for several weeks. Thanks to earlier posters for their guidance. When I arrived I didn't see the bird on Longfellow Pond, so I began walking on the Longfellow Trail, to see if might be in the brook on the south side of Oakland Street. I found it almost immediately a short distance from the road, with a small group of Mallards, from which it was distinguished by its smaller size, longer and more spatulate bill, more obvious "grin," and an overall gray and white look, as opposed to the muted browns of the Mallard females. The birds made their way over what others have called the dam (a beaver dam?), where they joined a large group of ducks and Canada Geese. After a short while something spooked a few of the birds, including the Shoveler (was it me?), and the Shoveler flew some distance down Rosemary Brook, headed south. (The Mallards that flushed with it quickly settled down close to where they had been before.) The Shoveler then re-appeared, all alone, in the area immediately south of Oakland Street, where I took the attached photos. My 204th Wellesley bird.

Technical information

Model

OM-1

Lens

OM 150-400mm F4.5

ISO

3200

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/4.5

Shutter speed

1/800 sec

Dimensions

2436 pixels x 1800 pixels

Original file size

1.28 MB