Common Mergansers in the Mill River in Haydenville. You'd think I would have gotten enough of them last year, but noo-ooo-ooo, I'm like some kind of dog: when I see ducklings I can't stop myself from running after them. Click the picture above to see the full collection. Some of the picture captions are longer narratives; when viewing a picture, click the i-in-a-circle icon in the upper right to display the full caption in a sidebar.
And, elsewhere in town, some ducks that I initially thought were mallards turned out to be a family of Wood Ducks. Pictures here. The swamp they live in is almost certainly where the young duck in the posting below came from.
Tech
notes: After trying various lenses last year, I found the perfect lens for river duck-work: the Nikon 70-200mm f/4 G. Autofocus & vibration reduction, and satisfyingly sharp, even wide open. When the ducks aren't moving, I can use the camera on the Astro-Tech AT-65Q telescope, which works as a 420mm telephoto lens. Slow manual focusing and requires a tripod, but unbelievably sharp. I've started recording pictures in raw mode rather than jpeg; this is the only way I've found to avoid blown highlights and lost shadow detail. Raw processing with Affinity Photo. Raw is a lot more work than jpegs—it's like going back to darkroom days—but the improvement is amazing, like printing your own photos versus getting snapshots back from the drugstore.
