Male Wood duck

Cracking flight shot,
Lee

Very nice David. Can't think of anything that could be better on it.

Fine capture, David. Lovely colors. Sharp except for the wings. Blur must be DØF rather than shutter speed. At 1/2500 s that duck would need to flap pretty hard to blur your image!

Great shot David. This is a fine WD flight shot. Exposure and sharpness all look great...I can even see waterdrops on him.

Like the action David, the spread of the wings & eye contact. Is this a transitional plumage? I ask because I am used to seeing the back and chest darker & richer colored than presented here and don't know much about their transitional plumage.

Mia,
I tend to desaturate most of my images so it may look a little flat color wise compared to what you're used to. Sometimes wood ducks pop too much with the colors. I don't know if this is a transitional phase or not. I'll ask around. I just don't know much about the transitional phase but I shot another Male in flight that was very brightly colored so maybe it's just this individual. Thanks for the comment though Mia.

I like the top side view here David, I was thinking he wasn't quite as bright as most wood ducks so the desaturation would explain that.

Nice shot of a beautiful bird-the colors are superb.

Lovely image. I like the way your choice of DOF has equally blurred both wings-emphasizing the body and those amazing markings. Well done.

Wonderful flight shot with complimentary background, well done.

Great BG and I like the full wing spread with wing tips up David, nice POV and colors..
Would love the opportunity to catch one of these beautiful bird inflight myself, hat's off to ya.
Well composed - well done!
Have a great weekend

Really nice David. Love the view of the bird in this shot. Nice sharpness and BG too. This bird should have just completed its pre-basic molt not too long ago, so it should have and looks to have new primaries, etc. So, I think it is just the light angle that makes the colors look a bit different than one would expect to see.

David,

Thanks for replying to my question about the plumage on this fellow. I see Ron B also replied and he knows his ducks! I tend to keep my colors as natural as possible David, this species is often posted oversaturated and way too contrasty and I don't think the colors of the guy are dull.

David,
I really like the flight pose, the colors and the clear background. Great work.

Ron and Mia,
Thanks for clearing up the coloration. I probably desaturated a little too much. Most wood duck images I see are way over the top with saturated colors (to the point where most of the colors almost look hot) and I simply prefer mine a little bit on the softer side. I do notice that the eye, which is typically hot red, is fairly muted so I probably went too far on the desaturation. Mia, I should probably post as natural as possible with colors but I think we all tend to exagerate saturation and contrast one way or the other. Thanks again for the comments guys.

Great effort David in less than ideal conditions. Great sharpness in the larger version.

cheers
Rob

What a stunning photo, tremendous sharpness on the head and the rest aint bad either! I like the way you rendered the colors, very natural.