{"id":99210,"date":"2022-01-24T05:22:57","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T12:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=99210"},"modified":"2022-02-01T05:17:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T12:17:05","slug":"first-winter-common-goldeneye-drake-images","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/01\/24\/first-winter-common-goldeneye-drake-images\/","title":{"rendered":"First Winter Common Goldeneye Drake Images"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FirstFirst winter Common Goldeneye male at an urban pond \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/2500, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Two days ago I spent a lot of time focused on a first winter Common Goldeneye drake as he swam, foraged, and ate at an urban pond close to home. I took so many photos of this young male goldeneye that I had a hard time deciding on which images to share here. Today I picked images of him that simply caught my eye for the colors, reflections, swirly water, behavior and poses.<\/p>\n

This image with the swirly white reflections on the water popped on my screen.<\/p>\n

\"1st1st winter male Common Goldeneye paddling in a pond \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/2500, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

This photo caught my eye because of the white and blue colors on the water and the nice head turn of the young male goldeneye.<\/p>\n

\"ImmatureImmature Common Goldeneye drake and his reflection \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

When I saw this photo on my screen at home I knew I wanted to share it for the head on pose of the goldeneye and the multiple reflections of his white cheek patches. The multicolored reflections on the water were also visually appealing to me and contrasted with the dark and white plumage of the young drake.<\/p>\n

\"FirstFirst winter Common Goldeneye drake eating a crayfish \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The open bill and the crayfish in it were what caught my eyes with this goldeneye image. The young male goldeneye was a great hunter. I lost count of how many crayfish he caught while I photographed him.<\/p>\n

\"YoungYoung Common Goldeneye drake swallowing a crayfish \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Of all the photos that I took of the first winter Common Goldeneye male this one was my favorite because of his pose, the action of him swallowing the crayfish, the lifted tail, plus the water dribbling from his bill.<\/p>\n

He almost seemed to be smiling.<\/p>\n

\"YoungYoung male Common Goldeneye with a crayfish in his bill \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The red color reflected on the water in some of these images is from a red roof of a nearby building. Sometimes I don’t care for those blood red reflections and other times I don’t mind them at all. In this photo the red reflected off of the water seemed to accentuate the reflection of the dark head of the young male goldeneye along with his white cheek patches and bright yellow eye.<\/p>\n

\"YoungYoung Common Goldeneye drake with a crayfish breakfast \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/2500, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

I caught a catch light in the eye of the immature goldeneye drake in this image plus a catch light in the eye of the crayfish too.<\/p>\n

\"FirstFirst winter drake Common Goldeneye swimming with a crayfish in his bill \u2013 Nikon D500, tripod mounted, f7.1, 1\/1600, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally in this last photo that I selected to share today I simply liked the colors reflected on the water from the nearby vegetation and the blue sky and how the tiny water droplets on the back of the young goldeneye seemed to sparkle in the morning sunlight.<\/p>\n

All in all I had fun photographing this first winter Common Goldeneye drake. One could say that I thought it was just ducky!<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

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

Two days ago I spent a lot of time focused on a first winter Common Goldeneye drake as he swam, foraged, and ate at an urban pond close to home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,962,709,26],"tags":[405,5552,10878,4238,5756,4520,2545,2544,4753,4483,1129,4286,2450,6348,5586,4067,4062,10644,1984,4106,3973,5549,1283,8018,30,3996,373,4193],"class_list":["post-99210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-common-goldeneyes","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-1st-winter","tag-bill","tag-breakfast","tag-bucephala-clangula","tag-catch-light","tag-common-goldeneye","tag-crawdad","tag-crayfish","tag-diving-ducks","tag-drake","tag-duck","tag-eating","tag-first-winter","tag-goldeneye","tag-goldeneyes","tag-immature","tag-male","tag-paddling","tag-pond","tag-prey","tag-salt-lake-county","tag-swallowing","tag-swimming","tag-urban","tag-utah-2","tag-water","tag-winter","tag-young"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/common-goldeneye-drake-1st-winter-mia-mcpherson-2414.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-pOa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":109770,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2023\/01\/22\/1st-winter-common-goldeneye-drake-with-a-crawdad\/","url_meta":{"origin":99210,"position":0},"title":"1st 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McPherson","date":"December 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"On this day two years ago, I photographed this immature male Common Goldeneye with a catfish at the pond in my neighborhood. 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