{"id":6391,"date":"2012-10-20T03:55:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T09:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=6391"},"modified":"2025-04-01T09:23:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T14:23:50","slug":"wood-duck-drake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/10\/20\/wood-duck-drake\/","title":{"rendered":"Wood Duck Drake"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WoodWood Duck drake – Nikon D200, f6.3, 1\/320, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 330mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Just a simple Wood Duck (Aix sponsa<\/em>) drake image today. I found this handsome bird chasing around mallards on Lake Seminole, he was acting very territorial.<\/p>\n

I’ve found Wood Ducks to be a challenge to photograph because of the high contrast in their plumage coloring. I want visible detail in the blacks and the whites plus the darks need to be light enough to show the iridescence blues, greens, purples, golds and aqua.<\/p>\n

When I photographed this Wood Duck drake I remember wishing that we had high thin clouds to diffuse the sunlight a bit. It still worked out okay though.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

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

When I photographed this Wood Duck drake I remember wishing that we had high thin clouds to diffuse the sunlight a bit. It still worked out okay though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25,1882,2000,1883],"tags":[4482,4021,4483,126,4062,3996,2063,4481],"class_list":["post-6391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-florida","category-lake-seminole-florida","category-pinellas-county-florida","category-wood-duck-ducks","tag-aix-sponsa","tag-bird-photography","tag-drake","tag-ducks-2","tag-male","tag-water","tag-waterfowl","tag-wood-duck"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/wood-duck-drake-mia-mcpherson-1259.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-1F5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":142423,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2025\/04\/01\/wood-duck-pair-at-reeves-slough\/","url_meta":{"origin":6391,"position":0},"title":"Wood Duck Pair At Reeves Slough","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"April 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday morning, I was more than delighted to photograph a Wood Duck pair at Reeves Slough at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hen and drake Wood Duck pair at Reeves Slough, Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/wood-duck-hen-drake-pair-mia-mcpherson-1972.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/wood-duck-hen-drake-pair-mia-mcpherson-1972.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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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.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"High key Mallard drake portrait, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mallard-drake-high-key-mia-mcpherson-6219.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mallard-drake-high-key-mia-mcpherson-6219.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mallard-drake-high-key-mia-mcpherson-6219.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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found a Ring-necked Duck and an odd Lesser Scaup drake at my local pond. The scaup puzzled me and I wondered if he might be a hybrid.","rel":"","context":"In "Bird ID"","block_context":{"text":"Bird ID","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/bird-identification\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ring-necked Duck and an odd Lesser Scaup, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ring-necked-duck-and-weird-scaup-mia-mcpherson-1489.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ring-necked-duck-and-weird-scaup-mia-mcpherson-1489.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ring-necked-duck-and-weird-scaup-mia-mcpherson-1489.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ring-necked-duck-and-weird-scaup-mia-mcpherson-1489.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14314,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/02\/11\/redhead-drake-portrait\/","url_meta":{"origin":6391,"position":5},"title":"Redhead drake portrait","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"February 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The sun came out for a few hours yesterday afternoon so I went to a pond near where I live and photographed some of the ducks including this very confiding Redhead drake.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Redhead drake portrait, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/redhead-duck-portrait-mia-mcpherson-9081.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/redhead-duck-portrait-mia-mcpherson-9081.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/redhead-duck-portrait-mia-mcpherson-9081.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/redhead-duck-portrait-mia-mcpherson-9081.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}