{"id":50736,"date":"2018-01-21T05:30:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-21T12:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=50736"},"modified":"2025-09-02T06:58:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:58:46","slug":"snowy-high-key-mallard-drake-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/01\/21\/snowy-high-key-mallard-drake-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowy High Key Mallard Drake Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HighHigh key Mallard drake portrait – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 640, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoyed all the snow we got here in the Salt Lake Valley Friday night and throughout the day on Saturday. It might be the<\/em> one big snowfall we get this winter so I took advantage of that and visited the local ponds several times throughout the day.<\/p>\n

Although the light wasn’t great I still took quite a few images of the ducks, geese, coots, and gulls I found there.<\/p>\n

My favorite image of the day was this high key Mallard drake portrait that was taken in the late afternoon which was the only time I could see the sun behind the clouds the whole day.<\/p>\n

The duck had gotten out of the pond and waddled up onto the shore and I might not have photographed him but I noticed that he had a mound of snow behind him and that the iridescent green plumage on his head seemed to glow against the stark white background.<\/p>\n

How could I resist photographing him? As you can see I didn’t. I love that I can see the cold looking, winter sun in the eye of this bird.<\/p>\n

Mallards are pretty abundant throughout the U.S. and there are people who wouldn’t have raised their lens to photograph this bird simply because of that.<\/p>\n

Sure, it would have been wonderful to have a less “common” bird as a subject under the same circumstances and lighting conditions, a Redhead duck would have been fabulous, or a drake Common Merganser or the even more colorful drake Wood Duck but I photograph birds, all birds, and try to do take the best photo I can with the subject I have in front of me.<\/p>\n

Even the most “common” birds can be uncommonly<\/em> beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"SnowySnowy trees and the Jordan River<\/span><\/p>\n

It felt like I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one photo of a snowy scene that I saw yesterday so I wanted to include this picture that I took using my cell phone of the snow-covered trees along the Jordan River.<\/p>\n

The snow sure was gorgeous.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Mallard photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite image of the day was this high key Mallard drake portrait that was taken in the late afternoon which was the only time I could see the sun behind the clouds the whole day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,965,709,26],"tags":[4237,211,4483,1129,126,1123,4062,1604,10698,1984,4046,4050,4328,8018,2063,16369,373],"class_list":["post-50736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-mallards","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-anas-platyrhynchos","tag-background","tag-drake","tag-duck","tag-ducks-2","tag-high-key-2","tag-male","tag-mallard","tag-park","tag-pond","tag-portrait","tag-snow","tag-snowy","tag-urban","tag-waterfowl","tag-willow-pond-park","tag-winter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t