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Dragonflies in mid-November

Posted in Autumn, Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Autumn Meadowhawk, Canon 50D, dragonflies in autumn, Huntley Meadows Park, Sympetrum vicinum, Tamron 180mm on November 15, 2016| 6 Comments »

With all of this cooler weather that we have had recently, including several frosty mornings, you might think that dragonfly season has ended, but it’s not over yet. Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies (Sympetrum vicinum) are still with us in pretty significant numbers at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia. In previous years I have continued to see these dragonflies into mid-December and one of my fellow photographers has seen them in early January.

Autumn Meadowhawks are small dragonflies, a little over one inch (25 mm) in length, so you have to look hard to spot them. At any other time of the year, their red bodies would make them really stand out, but they seem to like to perch on fallen leaves, including red ones, so they are often pretty well camouflaged until they move.

Here are a few favorite shots of these red beauties from this past weekend. Enjoy the dragonflies while you may and put off thoughts of the impending winter.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Almost super moon

Posted in Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, full moon, moon, Runnymeade, super moon, Tamron 150-600mm on November 14, 2016| 11 Comments »

I think that tonight is officially the “super moon,” but the weather forecasters predict that it will be cloudy. Knowing this, I went out last night (and again this morning) to get some shots of the almost super moon.

I learned a couple of things from this experience. First, it’s not too hard to get shots of the moon in the sky. If I am going to be shooting the moon with any regularity, I need to scout out some locations so that I can get shots of the moon rising over the mountains or over the water.

Secondly, I learned that the visible features on the moon change their apparent positions over the course of a single night. If I had had any basic lessons in astronomy, I would probably have known this already, but this revelation came to me when I was comparing the shots that I took last night with those that I took this morning. I took the first shot below at 8:02 pm (20:02 hrs) last night and the second shot at 5:38 this morning. When you compare the photos, you can see that distinctive land features are in different locations.

almost super moon

Moon at 8:02 in the evening of 13 November 2016

Moon 5:38 in the morning of 14 November 2016

Moon at 5:38 in the morning of 14 November 2016

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Asian Small-clawed Otters

Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, zoo, tagged Aonyx cinerea, Asia Trail, Asian Small-clawed Otter, Canon 50D, National Zoo, otter, Tamron 150-600mm, Washington D.C. on November 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Otters are so much fun to watch. They seem to be very inquisitive and playful. One of their favorite pastimes appears to be chasing each other around.

I am familiar with the North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) and have been lucky enough to see one in the wild at my local marshland park. These images, however, are of Asian Small-clawed Otters (Aonyx cinerea) that I observed at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. last Monday.

There is a large group of these otters in an enclosure on the Asia Trail and I spent quite a while watching their antics. They seem to be in almost constant motion in and out of the water, so it was a fun challenge trying to get some shots of them.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Colors in the clouds

Posted in abstract, Autumn, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, cloud iridescence, clouds, colorful clouds, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 150-600mm on November 12, 2016| 7 Comments »

The skies over Huntley Meadows Park were amazing around 3:00 (15:00 hrs) yesterday afternoon when a cold front was blowing in. When certain clouds were illuminated by the sun they were transformed into pastel shades of the rainbow. At times there were varying shades of orange, green, aqua, and purple.

I suspected that moisture in the clouds was responsible for the colors, but I had never seen anything like it and did not know what it was called. After searching about on the internet, I learned that this diffraction phenomenon, known as cloud iridescence, is caused by small water droplets or ice crystals individually scattering light. According to Wikipedia, ” If parts of clouds have small droplets or crystals of similar size, their cumulative effect is seen as colors. The cloud must be optically thin, so that most rays encounter only a single droplet. Iridescence is therefore mostly seen at cloud edges or in semi-transparent clouds, and newly forming clouds produce the brightest and most colorful iridescence.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Pandas at the National Zoo

Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, wildlife, zoo, tagged Ailuropoda melanoleuca, Canon 50D, Giant Panda, National Zoo, panda, Tamron 150-600mm, Washington D.C. on November 11, 2016| 2 Comments »

Most of the times that I have visited the National Zoo the Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) have been indoors, but this past Monday I was thrilled to see that they were outdoors and active. There are two levels for viewing the pandas and I was on the upper level, giving me an unobstructed view and some relief from the large crowds.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots. The first one is of the youngest panda at the zoo, Bei Bei, who is a bit over a year old, and the second image shows him with an adult panda that I assume is his mother.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Orangutan overhead

Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, wildlife, zoo, tagged Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, National Zoo, orangutan, Washington D.C. on November 10, 2016| 10 Comments »

It was really cool (and only slightly disconcerting) to look up and see a hairy orangutan crossing almost directly overhead on a pair of ropes while I was visiting the National Zoo on Monday.

A series of ropes and towers connects the Great Ape House with another building called the Think Tank. The orangutans can move freely back and forth between the buildings at certain times of the day. Their overhead transit system crosses one of the major roads in the zoo and there are no nets or any other obstructions between visitors and the orangutans.

As you can see from one of the images, there is some kind of system on the towers that keeps the orangutans from climbing down one of the intermediate towers. I was amazed at how effortlessly the orangutan moved and never really worried that it might lose its grip and fall into my arms.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Faces at the National Zoo

Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, zoo, tagged Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, Castor canadensis, cheetah, elephant, lion, lioness, National Zoo, North American Beaver, Tamron 150-600mm, Washington D.C. on November 9, 2016| 2 Comments »

The National Zoo in Washington D.C. is a wonderful place to explore and has the added bonus of having no admission fee. On Monday I wandered around the zoo for several hours, visiting some of my favorite animals and taking a lot of photos.

Here are some of my initial favorite images: a lioness, a cheetah, a beaver, and an elephant.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Expressing our differences

Posted in Birds, commentary, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, herons, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 150-600mm on November 8, 2016| 5 Comments »

Why were the Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) prancing about on Saturday with their heads tilted upward and their wings displayed? Surely this was some kind of elaborate courting ritual.

As Tina Turner famously sang, “What’s love got to do with it?” Apparently this is how these herons defend their feeding territories. Really? According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, one of my favorite sources of information on birds, “Great Blue Herons defend feeding territories from other herons with dramatic displays in which the birds approach intruders with their head thrown back, wings outstretched, and bill pointing skyward.”

If only we could be so dignified in expressing our differences instead of squawking loudly and aggressively at each other.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Autumn hawk

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, autumn hawk, Buteo lineatus, Canon 50D, hawk, Huntley Meadows Park, Red-Shouldered Hawk, Tamron 150-600mm telephoto on November 7, 2016| 3 Comments »

I have been hearing the cries of Red-shouldered Hawks (Buteo lineatus) frequently at my local marshland park, but I have had a lot of trouble spotting them. At this time in the autumn there are still lots of leaves on the trees that obscure my view. Gradually some of the leaves are starting to change colors and fall from the trees, but that process takes place a bit later here in Northern Virginia than in more northern areas of the United States.

As I was walking along the boardwalk at Huntley Meadows Park on Saturday morning, I saw a brightly colored object at the top of a tree. Looking through my telephoto lens, I was thrilled to see that it was a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk that was out on a limb, giving me an almost unobstructed line of sight for a shot. In most of my shots, the hawk was looking away, but I was thrilled to be able to get a few shots in which one of the hawk’s eyes is visible. The bright blue sky and the red leaves surrounding the hawk were a nice bonus.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Gentle liftoff

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, birds in flight, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, heron, Huntley Meadows Park, qu, Tamron 150-600mm on November 6, 2016| 22 Comments »

Some birds seem to explode out of the water when they are taking off, but Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) often seem to gently lift off with almost no splash at all. The Great Blue Heron at Huntley Meadows Park were really active early yesterday morning, frequently flying from one location to another. They seemed to be more intent on socializing with each other than with finding food. In a future post, I’ll look more closely at that behavior, which might be related to courting, but today I’m focusing on one heron’s gentle liftoff.

I’ve watched herons take off hundreds of times, but this is one of the first times that I have been able to capture the moment of liftoff from the water. In this little sequence of three images, you can see the heron rising up, leaving the water, and gradually gaining altitude. The stillness of the early morning helped create some wonderful reflections, a nice bonus that adds some additional visual interest to the images.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Sign or no sign?

Posted in Autumn, Inspiration, Landscape, Nature, Travel, tagged beach, Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, Maine, Ocean Park Maine, Old Orchard Beach, seascape on November 5, 2016| 28 Comments »

Is it distracting to have a man-made object in an otherwise natural landscape? The ocean really inspired me during my recent short trip to Maine. I am amazed at the number of beautiful images that I was able to capture. I particularly like the colors and simple composition of a shot I took of a small river that rises and falls with the tide.

As I was working on the image, I noticed that there was a solitary warning sign in the upper left-hand corner that alerts folks to the dangers of the tides. I actually like the juxtaposition of this hard vertical line with the gentle curves of the image and the hazy coastline in the background. I began to wonder, however, if others would see the sign as a discordant element in the image, so I created a second version of the image without the sign.

Which image do you prefer, the one with the sign or the one without it?

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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By the dawn’s early light

Posted in Autumn, Inspiration, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged Canon 24, Canon 50D, dawn, Maine, Old Orchard Beach, sunrise on November 3, 2016| 4 Comments »

The sky was mostly clouded over as I made my way toward the beach in the early morning, but the dawn’s early light helped me to see the wooden pathway through the dune grass at Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Although I couldn’t see the sun itself, a reddish glow was reflected on the clouds and sometimes onto the water.

It was a fun challenge to try to capture the beautiful light in different ways, from the very realistic to the almost abstract.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Clams for lunch

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, clams, Great Black-backed Gull, gull, Larus marinus, Maine, Old Orchard Beach on November 2, 2016| 5 Comments »

Do you like clams? I don’t care for them much, but this Great Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus) really seemed to be enjoying the one it found when I spotted it this past weekend on the shore at Old Orchard Beach in Maine. As the tide was going out there seemed to be quite a few partially opened clams on which the gulls were feasting.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Maine seascapes in late October

Posted in Autumn, Inspiration, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged Atlantic Oc, Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, Maine, Old Orchard Beach, seascape on November 1, 2016| 1 Comment »

I don’t often shoot landscapes (or seascapes), but the beauty of the ocean and the waves crashing on the shore inspired me to give it a shot. Normally I take photos with a macro lens or a telephoto zoom, but I was fortunate to have brought along a 24-105mm lens. Here are a few favorite images that I captured yesterday at Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Early birds on the beach in Maine

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, tagged Atlantic Ocean, Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, dawn, gull, Maine, Old Orchard Beach, shorebirds on November 1, 2016| 5 Comments »

A walk along the beach early Halloween morning in Ocean Park, Maine helped to refresh my mind, my body, and my spirit. I had made a quick trip to Maine for a family emergency and was feeling really stressed. The peace and power of the ocean had an amazing therapeutic effect on me.

The tourists are now almost gone from this vacation area south of Portland and the beach was mostly deserted except for me, some shore birds and an occasional dog walker.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Autumn produce art

Posted in Art, Autumn, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, autumn produce, Canon 50D, Nalls Produce Center on October 28, 2016| 9 Comments »

I love the way that the folks at Nalls Produce Center chose to display their wide variety of autumn produce—it is almost like a work of art. It was a challenge to photograph the wall of produce and I never did get the angles quite right. so all my photos were crooked to one degree or another. I thought about trying to photograph individual boxes, but decided to photograph them in multiples of varying numbers.

As I look overt the images I continue to marvel at the differences in size, shape, color, and texture of the fruits and vegetables on display.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Not sharing

Posted in Birds, Humor, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, heron, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 150-600mm on October 26, 2016| 5 Comments »

I never get tired of watching the Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) at Huntley Meadows Park. Quite often they ignore me and focus intently on catching a fish. I marvel at their patience and persistence.

During one recent encounter, though, I had eye-to-eye contact with a heron. The heron looked right at me and seemed to be sending a distinct warning message that it was not going to share the small fish that it had just caught.

I backed off and let the heron enjoy his fish appetizer in peace. It was gone in a quick gulp and the heron went back to work and I moved on in search of more subjects.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Funky chicken

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 24-105mm, Canon 50D, chicken, funky chicken, Nalls Produce Center on October 25, 2016| 3 Comments »

I grew up in the suburbs and don’t know much about domestic fowl, but it seems to me that this colorful bird must be some kind of funky chicken. I love the colors and the patterns in the feathers of this chicken.

I spotted this chicken during a visit to Nalls Produce Center, a wonderful location in our area to see all kinds of colorful produce and plant. While there, I also took some shots of pumpkins that I will probably feature in a posting later this week.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Glimpses of autumn

Posted in Autumn, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, autumn, autumn colors, Canon 50D, fall foliage, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 150-600mm on October 24, 2016| 5 Comments »

How do you capture the beauty of autumn? If you live in a location where there are broad expanses of trees full of brightly colored leaves, it would be pretty easy, I think. In Northern Virginia where I live, the colors tend to be muted and isolated. There are patches of colors here and there, but it seems like many of the leaves go straight from green to brown.

On some recent trips to Huntley Meadows Park, my favorite shooting location, I tried to capture some glimpses of the changing season using my telephoto zoom lens. The colors and patterns of the fall foliage turned into abstract patterns when viewed through a telephoto lens.

Here are some of my favorite shots as I focused in on the autumn foliage. I am also including a final image that attempts to capture the feeling of walking down a trail in the crisp morning air with fallen leaves crunching underfoot.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Sun-kissed mockingbird

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, Mimus polyglottos, mockingbird, Northern Mockingbird, Tamron 150-600mm on October 23, 2016| 10 Comments »

Common subjects like this Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) have a special appeal and challenge for me. Can I photograph them in an unusual way?

The foreground and background in this image almost blend together and highlight the beauty and personality of the mockingbird. The background makes it look a bit like it was taken in a studio setting. Only the chipped paint gives away the fact that the curious bird was perched on the man-made railing of a boardwalk. I also really like the way that the color and pattern of the weathered wood almost perfectly match the bird’s feathers.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Rough Green Snake

Posted in Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Reptiles, wildlife on October 22, 2016| 7 Comments »

As I was exploring yesterday at Huntley Meadows Park, I came upon this Rough Green Snake (Opheodrys aestivus) stretched out in the thorns at the edge of one of the fields. My first instinct was to move in close, but I actually remembered to take a shot of the entire snake before doing so. The “wide-angle” shot was taken with my 150-600mm telephoto zoom lens, which gave me a slightly wider view than the 180mm macro lens that I used for the close-up shot.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Cormorant silhouettes

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, birds in flight, Canon 50D, cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, Phalacrocorax auritus, Tamron 150-600mm on October 21, 2016| 3 Comments »

Generally it’s best to have the sun behind you when taking photos, but sometimes you are forced to shoot almost directly into the sun. When the conditions are right you can sometimes get wonderful silhouettes, like these images of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) that I spotted on the Potomac River near Dyke Marsh in Alexandria, Virginia this past Monday.

The shot of the perched cormorant was a conscious composition—I assessed the light and knew that I was shooting a silhouette. In the case of the flying cormorant, however, I was reacting to the movement of a bird taking off from the water and trying so hard to hard to capture focus and keep the bird in focus that I was not paying much conscious attention to the lighting.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Yellow-rumped Warbler

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Setophaga coronata, Tamron 150-600mm, warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler on October 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Periodically I’d catch a glimpse of a warbler in the trees of Huntley Meadows Park last Friday, but they mostly remained hidden deep within the branches. This Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata), however, ventured out of the shadows just enough that I was able to get this long-distance shot of it.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Beginning of the end

Posted in Autumn, Dragonflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, tagged Autumn Meadowhawk, Autumn Meadowhawk dragonfly, Canon 50D, Fort Belvoir VA, Jackson Miles Abbott Wetlands Refuge, Sympetrum vicinum, Tamron 180mm on October 19, 2016| 3 Comments »

I am not about to make a sign proclaiming that “The End is Near,” but I couldn’t help feeling a slight sense of impending doom when I spotted an Autumn Meadowhawk dragonfly (Sympetrum vicinum) this past weekend. In our area, Autumn Meadowhawks are the ultimate survivors of the dragonfly season and they can usually be found well into December and occasionally into January.

This pretty red and brown dragonfly is a harbinger of doom—inexorably winter is approaching and dragonflies will eventually cease to fly until the spring. For now, though, I’ll continue to search for these spectacular aerial acrobats and enjoy their beauty and skill when I am lucky enough to find one.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Cormorant on the Potomac River

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Dyke Marsh, Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, Phalacrocorax auritus, Potomac River, Tamron 150-600mm on October 18, 2016| 9 Comments »

Yesterday I spotted this beautiful Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) in the vegetation along the shore of the Potomac River as I explored Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve in Alexandria, Virginia. Although “heavy-boned” is a euphemism sometimes used for large people, it is literally true for cormorants and is one of the reasons why they ride so low in the water. Additionally, their feathers don’t shed water like those of ducks and can get waterlogged, which makes it easier to dive deeper, but requires them to dry them out periodically.

I hoped to catch a cormorant with its wings extended for drying, but none of the cormorants I saw were accommodating in that regard yesterday. I’m no psychic, but I foresee a return trip to that area in the near future.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Flying fish

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, Huntley Meadows Park, Tamron 150-600mm on October 17, 2016| 8 Comments »

At first glance I thought that this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) was getting ready to swallow a flying bird, but then I realized it was “only” a small, freshly caught fish that the heron had tossed into the air last week at Huntley Meadows Park.

A split-second later, the fish had disappeared.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Red berry for Red-bellied woodpecker

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Melanerpes carolinus, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Tamron 150-600mm on October 16, 2016| 9 Comments »

I am not sure if it is the cooler autumn weather or the impending winter, but all of the sudden the trees are alive with the sounds of woodpeckers. I can hear them pecking away and calling out to each other high in the trees. Unfortunately there are still a lot of leaves on the trees, making it hard to spot these busy birds.

On Friday at Huntley Meadows Park, I did manage to get a clear view of a beautiful little Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) feverishly foraging in a tree. Suddenly the woodpecker turned its head in my direction as though it wanted to proudly show me the bright red fruit that it had discovered. With the fruit firmly in its bill and a slight smile on its face, the woodpecker flew away, perhaps to cache its find for another day.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Happiness

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, bluebird, Canon 50D, Eastern Bluebird, happiness, Huntley Meadows Park, Sialia sialis, Tamron 150-600mm on October 15, 2016| 2 Comments »

Bluebirds are often considered to be a symbol of happiness and I was definitely happy to spot this beautiful Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) yesterday at Huntley Meadows Park. I saw bluebirds a number of times during my walk around the park on a sunny autumn day, but this was one of the only ones that was within range of my camera.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Inquisitive dragonfly

Posted in Autumn, Dragonflies, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Blue-faced Meadowhawk, Blue-faced Meadowhawk dragonfly, Canon 50D, Huntley Meadows Park, Sympetrum ambiguum, Tamron 180mm on October 14, 2016| 13 Comments »

Many dragonflies are very skittish and will fly away as you get close. Blue-faced Meadowhawks (Sympetrum ambiguum), however, appear to be unusually inquisitive, like this one that perched on my knee Monday at Huntley Meadows Park as I was trying to photograph another dragonfly.

He seemed to want to check me out at close range and I returned the favor.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Gaggle

Posted in Birds, Humor, Nature, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Branta canadensis, Canada Geese, Canon 50D, Kingstowne, Tamron 150-600mm on October 13, 2016| 3 Comments »

Have you ever tried to shoot a group portrait? You get everyone lined up and facing the camera, but there is always one uncooperative subject. That was certainly the case with these Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) at a little suburban pond on Monday. The gaggle of geese was preening and cleaning themselves all in a row on a on a concrete bar sticking out of the water.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Early migration

Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Aythya collaris, Canon 50D, diving ducks, Kingstowne, Ring-necked duck, Tamron 150-600mm on October 11, 2016| 4 Comments »

As we move deeper into fall we will be seeing more and more migrating birds in Northern Virginia, where I live . Some will just be passing through the area, but others will probably overwinter here, like these Ring-necked ducks (Aythya collaris) that I spotted yesterday at a small suburban pond less than a mile from my townhouse.

Unlike most of the ducks that I see, Ring-necked ducks are diving ducks, not dabbling ducks. As a consequence, they spend most of the time in the middle of the pond, making them a bit tough to photograph. Fortunately the sun was shining brightly yesterday, so that I was able to capture the ducks’ golden eyes even when shooting at a distance.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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