Centennial Park Ducks

A big reason why I'm a part of several different photography groups is to get leads on places and subjects to shoot. This happened for me again earlier this week, when a gentleman posted a picture of a Mandarin Duck on the NANPA Facebook group. The caption said it had been taken in Dallas, so I quickly sent him a message asking if it had been taken recently. He replied that it had been taken that day, and after some further dialogue also shared that the location was Centennial Park in Irving.

The game was afoot!

I had some time on Wednesday, so despite the forecast for overcast skies I decided to go and at least scout the location.  Cormorants, gulls, pigeons, and geese were in abundance, along with some extremely intimidating Lesser Scaup ...

... some active Muscovy Duck ...

... and some fairly noisy American Wigeon.  The Mandarin, however, eluded me.  As did the sun.  So I decided to cut my losses and come back Saturday when the skies were supposed to be clearer.

Unfortunately, when I awoke this morning the skies were not, in fact, clear.  But the sun's arrival had supposedly only been postponed a few hours and not cancelled completely.  So after a brief delay I headed back and was delighted to see some Hooded Mergansers.  They were not my quarry, so I reluctantly chose not to pursue them for a closer look and turned my attention to finding that Mandarin.

The Scaup weren't completely done with me.  This lovely little lady gave me a coquettish pose as I continued to scour the surface of the water for ...

... the Mandarin!  I spotted him from quite a distance and had to carefully make my away into a position where I could get a closer look at him in decent light.  Fortunately, I had the time to do just that.

He wasn't content to stay in one place for very long.  But the place he spent the most time was directly under the 2nd Street bridge.  You know, in deep shadow with an awful concrete background covered in goose poop.  Fortunately, one of the Muscovy Ducks didn't much want him under there either.

Having successfully harassed the interloper, a nap was in order.

The Mandarin was stubborn, though.  He insisted on hanging out under that bridge, giving his best poses in these crummy conditions.  So with the highest ISO and slowest shutter speed I could tolerate, I did the best I could.

Eventually he headed back to the water and made for the pedestrian bridge, where I was able to scurry into position to catch him before he swam under it.

To my delight, he didn't swim under at first.  He meandered back and forth a bit, and it eventually dawned on me that my presence was bothering him.  So I decided the time had come to leave him be and I moved along.

I took one loop around the lake hoping to see the mergansers again.  They'd apparently continued along.  But the sun was lighting up this wigeon poking around in some floating leaves beautifully.

A successful "hunt."  And ducks weren't the only birds I saw and captured on my two visits.  More to come!