Centennial Park, March 2018

Another warm, sunny weekend day meant another trip out with my camera. I decided to return to Centennial Park in Irving where I'd had the good fortune of shooting Manny the Mandarin Duck a couple of years earlier. I didn't expect to see something that unique this time. I was mainly hoping for close proximity to a variety of birds in good light. The basics. :)

Not a bird, obviously.  I didn't realize fox squirrels ate leaf blossoms.  Gotta be easier on the choppers than acorns.

I stalked this Snowy Egret for a while hoping it would do something interesting.  This stretch qualifies.

A flotilla of red-eared sliders seemed to be enjoying the day.

Domestic geese tend to come closer than other "wilder" species.  I like the detail I was able to capture in the feathers, water droplets, and serrations in the beak here.

Muscovy ducks ain't pretty in the classic sense.  But I do like the view straight through the nare on this gal's beak.  Admittedly, I had to look up what that hole is called.

When families toss bread into the water, the Lesser Scaups get whipped into a bit of a feeding frenzy.

Then the families run of bread, and they leave, and serenity returns.

I'm gaining a greater appreciation of the impact that patterns on the water have on images of waterfowl.  The ripples are like clouds -- you've got to have some to boost the overall visual interest level.

I eventually picked up on watching for when the birds dove underwater and tried to catch them when they came back up.  Often they'd rear back and flap their wings to dry off a bit, like this lady.

I was at a great angle to get great detail on this female Wigeon...

... and this male Mallard.  The iridescent heads of Mallard drakes often give me trouble, but this one went well.

No Mandarin this year, but I think I actually got better shots this time around of the "common folk"!