Sylvan Heights Bird Park Part One

Saturday I made my first visit to Sylvan Heights Bird Park near Scotland Neck, NC. It was a great experience, and I came home with so many photos that even after editing down to a small fraction of the shots that I would like to share, the only practical approach to including them in this blog will be to break things into small daily doses. Eventually I will revamp my main website and organize galleries of images sorted in rational fashion (I hope!), but right now here are some water fowl in chronological order, the beginning of the day.

The iridescent patch of purple on the cheek of this male Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) only flashed briefly at this exact angle. I was pleased that all of the other colors and textures came through well in this shot. The sunlight was very intense at that time.

This blue nosed fella is a male Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis).

I think this next might be a variety of Muscovy Duck, but the color patterns and the head bulb are different from, and more attractive than (from my own perspective) what I'm used to seeing.

The Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata, male) and turtle (gender unknown) seemed like companions, and looked contemplative, which put me in a similar mood.

When the duck began flapping its wings, I reacted as if it were a human crying "hey, look here!"

"You can shoot me, but don't ignore my slower pal!"

A scarlet ibis (Eudocimus ruber) can be a show stopper pretty much anywhere, but against a background of totally blurred greenery - wow!

[all photos done with Canon EOS 1DX, EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS II + Ext 2X III, resulting focal length 600 mm, wide open aperture of f/5.6]

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