How glad I am to have caught these two “dancing.” I was already questioning my state of mind, as I’ve been outside a lot this past week but hardly seen any animals. Finally, another encounter:
These two green woodpeckers were so preoccupied with themselves that they didn’t realize they were courting right in the middle of the footpath/cycle path. I had a good minute with them until—of course—a cyclist followed by an inline skater came along the path.
A beautiful dance, and I’m guessing the male is the one trying to impress the female (here with a yellow patch on her back) with cloned wing beats and a big head bob. I would have liked to have watched longer, but I’m so happy I was able to witness this ceremonyeven if I would have preferred a lower angle. But that would have required me to get off my bike, and by then they would have been gone.
Further browsing through my image database brings a lot more to light. This young swan was just as curious about me as I was about him and let me get close… last spring. Speaking of which: Dany’s Dream Collection called. They want their poster swan back! 😉
According to Wikipedia, it is difficult to distinguish from the barn tit and the great tit, but since it appeared in the forest and Google also thinks it is a marsh tit, I’ll leave it at that; ornithologists are welcome to correct me.
Small, just as nimble as you would expect from a tit, this one was very quick to stuff its beak full and whizz away like an arrow. Bon appetite…
So that’s how it works! Simply crush a few nuts and spread a few oat flakes on top and place the whole thing, preferably by a large lake in the forest, and the whole flock of birds will come. Unfortunately, this feeding place on the Oberschweinsstiege is in the shade. In the depths of winter, the lighting conditions here are not particularly good. There were still a few good pictures. Unfortunately, it was too dark for the quick actions, but you can see that this is about the nut… and suddenly the English name makes sense.
And yes, birds do hug trees as you can see on the last shot. ;D
The first time I was in Hainhausen, I immediately spotted the kingfisher. While I was waiting for it and sitting on the Rodau, a buzzard came along with prey in its claws. It was flying so low and the river was not visible at that point that we were both really frightened when it burst through the branches just a meter in front of me. Luckily it didn’t lose its prey.
Last weekend I was looking for the kingfisher again – as you can see in the previous post – and guess who was there too.
… which translates to “ice bird” in German — Kingfisher for your englisch natives!
Perfect weather – clear, cold and lots of sunlight and all appointments cancelled. I need more forest and more sun… as much as I can get. If it’s already cold but the lakes don’t have any ice yet, wouldn’t a visit to the kingfisher be a good idea? No sooner said than done!
I stood in the wet mud for the first hour and no kingfisher came – but the buzzard from last time, which I almost collided with, did. Does he hunt here too? Perfect squared^2. Just as I decided to move on, he appeared next to me. We played cat and mouse for a good hour and a half and I chased him around the little lakes. Thanks to my lame autofocus, which has been getting it wrong a lot lately, I missed two or three wonderful opportunities. More training, Falk… others can do it too!
A few good pictures were taken, even if they aren’t action shots. Let’s see if Santa Claus has a camouflage net for me.
Unexpected things often happen! On Saturday I helped out in the museum again and was a bit disappointed because the weather was so nice. Yesterday it wasn’t so good, but going outside was on the agenda. Where to? Nadine remembered a nature reserve in Rodgau that we had visited in the spring – after reading an article in the Offenbach Post. Yes! That sounded good and it got even better:
Beavers have dammed the Rodau at this point, in the middle of Hainhausen, and flooded old gardens. This has created a landscape of lots of small lakes, separated by old fences remnants, drowned and fallen trees, all surrounded by mighty blackberry bushes, so that there is hardly any access to the water, unless you have wings or go swimming. As soon as we arrived I saw a kingfisher hunting and after a good hour of waiting and sneaking through the lost gardens I caught it. Finally a decent picture of the blue diamond! One thing is certain: I have to go back there as soon as time and weather permit.
Winter is approaching and autumn was quite wet and dark. When the sun comes out, all the animals like to come out again and recharge their batteries – especially the cold-blooded ones. At the restaurant, “zum Grünen See” (Green Lake), there was a whole flock of young wall lizards scurrying around under the veranda… young and relatively carefree. The adult lizard sat, well hidden, under the deck and peeped furtively at me while the kids played outside. They are considered an invasive species, as I just read… perhaps because they produce offspring so late in the year?
Well, sometimes you have to be lucky, although many professional photographers say that there is no luck when you doing pictures for a living. I think they are partly right: The more you use your camera and get to know the techniques, the better you get. It is the same with everything you learn. So you are probably more prepared and know to set the scene – hence know where you have to stand, what has to be in the picture and where composition-wise and so on… in short: know your trade! …. and than you can capture a shot that might look like you were lucky. Right, so! But do think that there is a rest of luck to be found in a good shot, as you can’t predict the weather or any circumstances outside. Lucky us, this is up to the god(s) above and so I feel lucky and happy that I won this tiny contest from my hometown Offenbach. As you might know, it is home to the Deutsche Wetterdienst (Germany weather service) that produces the national weather forecasts. We do have a so called weather park (Wetterpark), where all the aspects of weather are explained in great detail and with models. The blue hour are actually two times of the day; at sunrise and at sunset where the light turns everything I a cool blue. Here we go for sunrise in autumn, when I did my first trip to my cardio doctor. I guess the luck came in form of this mist and I ended up first place. 😀 This was shot with my iPhone, as I am not a professional photographer and as much as I try to carry around the big heavy equipment there are times when it doesn’t make sense…. or would it have made in this case. Dilemma here!
The thistles don’t just seem to be a tasty source of food for the goldfinches. If you stay close to them for a while, you’ll notice that they’re a safe haven for many insects – in my case, it was a whole bunch of grasshoppers happily courting. I only took notice when one of them fluttered to the next branch, because both in terms of color and their bizarre, spiky shapes, they blend in well with the structure of the thistles.
These small, colorful arrows that you see flashing here and there. I’ve always wondered what kind of bird it is and now I’ve found it. Also known in German as the Distelfink (relates to something like “Thristelfinch”) its bright, colorful plumage suddenly provides wonderful camouflage when it sits in the middle of a clump of thistle flowers. The strong beak is typical of finches. They use it to pluck the seeds of the prickly thistle and nibble on the kernels. You’d think they’d enjoy letting the leftovers fly into the wind.
May I introduce: Squik Jr. The weather on Tuesday was terrible. It had been below 20 degrees at night, but during the day the thermometer shot up to 30 degrees Celcius. The Kogel is in the shade, but also right under the roof. In the evening the little one came out and hung on our awning, very exhausted. A pot of water and a piece of cold watermelon from the coolest part of our fridge and some wallnuts helped a little. Mama Squink kept watch and ran excitedly back and forth while the offspring couldn’t keep its eyes open. I hope it survives this summer.
… and other dragonflies. It’s that time of year again when the dragonflies are buzzing and the lakes and water extinguishers are buzzing around. Did you know that this is actually the final stage of their existence. The larvae sometimes spend up to 5 years in the water, hunting and growing, until they pupate and then buzz around as dragonflies for a summer, lay eggs and then die. Beautiful animals. This big blue arrow was quite “shy” at first and I had to stand quietly in front of a stalk in the lake for a good 15 minutes until he came back to me. The mosquito bites on my body still itch today.
It was a bit of a shock when my beloved little pine tree on the balcony suddenly had no branches or leaves; as if someone had simply cut it bare and left only the trunk and a few small shoots at the top. At the time I first blamed Nadine and when she denied it, it was my mother’s turn until a few days later I caught a squirrel biting off the branches right at the trunk and carrying them away. Now our birch tree had to suffer and in return we have half a kogel right above our awning and a cheeky young squirrel that took over the balcony yesterday morning. They are cute… but they are also robbers!
A hot tip from a photographer in one of my Facebook groups (thanks Thomas!) gave me the pleasure of visiting a kestrel nest from relatively close up.At first the nest box was deserted, because the “little ones” are already quite big and are already flying around. The whole family was sitting on the roofs all around. I think I counted 5 animals.
I lay down behind a bush for 20 minutes, opposite the box, and at least two came by. You a see how tense and concentrated the youngsters still are, when flying. The morning would be the right time to take photos there, because then you would have the sun at your back… but you have to work.
Beautiful animals and somehow there is a connection: I’m buying an “e” and would like to fly with it.
Honestly, this is the hardest thing I have tried to photograph so far. Swallows in flight. Small, as fast as an arrow and always hooking. Neither my hardware, or time nor my skills are sufficient. Here are a few “snapshots”, because there is no other way. Keep your eyes on it if you can, hope, pray and push the shuttler. 99% of the output was blurry or the bird was already far out of the picture. To make matters worse, clouds came up and the light faded. I wonder if that would be a case for a light barrier. But how to get this positions over a lake about 10m wide? No, I will need more than 30 Minutes of time and better light and probably a camera that can do more than 6 frames per second.
At least, thanks to the use of some AI tools, you can still see something in the pictures. I think I have a new task. So this is not a quality post rather than a call to action, to do it better next time.
A raven black with clever eyes,
in the neighbor’s garden flies.
There stood a tree so proud and grand,
with cherry fruits in sunlight’s band.
With cunning gaze and swiftest flight,
he took a fruit, a quick delight.
One bite, two bites – sweet and bright,
soon the tree was bare in sight.
This was chatGPT not me!
I swear I can do it better,
if I only had the time to type those kind of letters.
I promised to come up with a pretty post, after those alien insects. 😉
Back on the artificial turf field at BSC where Josh found the head and remains of a stag beetle a week earlier, this time the front part of a large Capricorn beetle was lying. And when I say big, I mean it! Wiki say it reaches up to 55mm length, but this was definitely of a bigger scale. The shocking thing was that he was still alive, even though everything from the wings downward was missing.
I picked him up and he held on tightly to my finger and sat him on the edge of the hockey rink. Let’s be honest: The animal looks like alien queen from Aliens. The next picture will be something nice again… I promise.
There are animals that you only see a few times in your life. My first encounter with a stag beetle was at a tennis tournament when I was probably 14 years old. I hit the ball… at least that’s what I thought, but there was a large stag beetle sitting on the fence, rearranging its limbs in a somewhat disturbed manner. During Corona we discovered one in the forest and then yesterday… he or better she came padding towards me in the middle of the road, because no antlers means it’s a female. The lady wasn’t shy at all and then obediently let me sit her down in the next bush. However, I was so taken aback by the encounter that I once again didn’t adjust the camera correctly. Well… next time, because I hope I see more of these micro-giants.
Father’s Day, oh yeah. I wished I could spend a few hours in the forest with my family, without any appointments. Last fall I discovered a few small pools in the forest and wanted to show them to the children, so we set off with our bikes and picnic basket.
No large animals to be seen and the drowned mandarin duck from two weeks ago had also disappeared. Marie then spotted this dragonfly that was just hatching. We watched her spellbound. A laborious process, but beautiful. After a good 20 minutes she had made it, but had fallen off her blade of grass and was lying on a leaf, like on a platter on her back. She was happy to accept a helping finger. We eyed each other and then set her down in the tussock further down, next to the leaf. Really pleased that my kids had the chance to witness this little wonder…
They are considered dirty, unclean, nasty and carriers of disease, but honestly… can those eyes hide any bad? It’s no secret that almost all animals can perform the “puppy dog look”. This one has brought the whole thing to perfection and lives on Friedrichsweiher, around the corner. No, it is shy, doesn’t beg – unlike all the birds – she zooms into her burrow and waits for old grannies to empty their bread basket there, or for the ravens to empty the garbage cans.
I really like rats and Orco, the rat that lived with me for a few years was very clean and was like a little dog. He – actually a she – came when you called, she was cheeky and funny. Unfortunately, she came out of a lab and got cancer very soon.
I only had an hour, but luckily I was already close to the forest. My senses were not deceiving me and I was near a small hidden clearing in the forest where there are a few water holes – no bigger than garden ponds – that I had discovered last year in autumn. The sun was already low and the fresh, green grass at the edge shone magnificently.
There was a Mandarin duck swimming in one of the lakes and something bright in the water next to it, which at first I thought was a thick birch branch. Looking through the telephoto, I saw that the branch had two strange, very symmetrical little cantilevers…. Wait, those look like bird legs an the feathers fit to a female mandarin duck! And indeed the male seemed to be guarding her.
It turned out that there were two males, but it was the one that kept coming back and was occasionally chased away by the other one. I have no idea what really happened here; probably a case for the bird CSI…. but the light was great and even dead water birds look elegant.
The icy grip of winter is still felt and with temperatures below 5 degrees in the evening, clouds and lots of rain, the whole of spring is slightly delayed. This wasp looked anything but fit when I found it. I placed her in the sparse rays of the sun and soon she was gone. Before that, she posed nicely for me.
Today I put all my obligations and appointments aside and went out into nature. The weather was suboptimal, as they say. It seems like April was a little early this year because it was raining heavily when I stepped outsid. Thanks to great apps, you can look at the cloud bands directly above your location and see when the rain takes a break, but of course that doesn’t save you if you’re in the middle of the forest and it’s pouring.
After the first 500m there was another shower and the idea of limiting the tour to a short lap creeped into my head, but then there was a big boost of motivation: This nice Mr. Buzzard was sitting on the other side of the street, right on the sidewalk. When I discovered him, passers-by came only about two meters past him and I was already cursing inside. They didn’t see him and he noticed that very clearly and stayed. On the other hand, he spotted me straight away, but it was another one of those magical moments where the animal realizes that I meant it no harm and reacted with curiosity rather than fear. I got within 3 meters of him and he posed and eyed me and the thick lens. Thank you, dear Buzzard, for these three minutes. Made my day! This gave me the motivation to continue my trip and I spent four fantastic hours in the forrest.
Down on the Main is the old loading terminal of the former Höchst/Clariant Chemie. The cormorants have taken over it and are drying their feathers high up above the water, in the sun.
It’s nice when old man-made things are conquered by animals and nature.
There are times when photography is easy and beautiful and there are times when the circumstances are anything but good. I have often met my special friend, the krestel, in his hunting grounds on the Fechenheim meadows or on the Bürgel side of the Main. This time I was out quite early and the sun remained in its bed of clouds. With a little software magic, you can still see it easily and yes, it is still winter when the birds prefer to pounce on the flattened menu on the street instead of hunting. 😉
The day started with a headache and body aches and the children weren’t enthusiastic about going outside either – too cold, too grey and too unfit. With little hope of getting something great in front of my lens, I grabbed Spike and the camera and wanted to walk for an hour towards the forest, along the Hainbach. And suddenly he was, flying past me like an colourful arrow and sitting on a branch 30m behind me. I dropped everything, dog leash, gloves, bag and fumbled out the camera as quickly as I could so I could at least take a few pictures before he moved on. The disappointment came at home: ISO 18000. Thanks to a lot of post-processing, it is now “vieawble”. .. at least significantly better than the last attempt. I’m getting closer, yessss!
Since I started wandering through the forest more consciously, I see them often. It used to be something special to see a woodpecker. Is this due to my training, or are there simply more woodpeckers in the forest? He diligently and diligently worked on the branch and got a few delicacies from the bark.
This is what it looks like when the goose cry… not quite Prince like. 😉 Sun! For what felt like an eternity everything was just grey, wet and cold. It was cold today too, but the sun was there. After breakfast, I quickly went to the Friedrichsweiher, sneaked around the corner and looked at how the animals defy the weather. Your Egyptian geese do what they usually do: make noise! Thanks to the low sun and low temperatures, her breath was visible.
Gray herons are not an uncommon guest on my blog, which is because they have been reappearing in our cities in recent years – you just see them more often. I can’t say exactly what it is, but there’s something about these animals: while they look very graceful and beautiful profile, they look a bit dumb and weird from the front. This fellow here wasn’t shy, but kept his distance when I got too close to him.
After my heart attack in January, I had to slow down and load up less. Instead of being stuck in front of the screen, I went out with the camera and was outside for several hours almost every day and that’s what my body needed. The animals seemed to sense that I was no longer so hectic, so charged, and they remained so. Some of the most beautiful pictures were taken because the subject I was photographing found me just as interesting as I did. Impatience and lack of time are the death of good photos, as I have now learned after 17 years, and it is therefore clear why the results are better now than all the years before. On the one hand, I was traveling alone and didn’t have to take anyone into account. No children making noise and running ahead, no partner impatiently waiting for me to take the picture… just me, the animals and the camera. It’s a shame, because my two children are very fond of animals, but they are too impatient to wait long for something.
This deer was no exception. It was preening itself in the evening sunshine and initially didn’t notice me as I approached slowly, but after work I’m usually busy too and so it noticed me quite quickly. A wonderful indicator that I need to spend more time outside to find peace. On the other hand I would love to go on a trip with a likeminded photographer. Always nicer to share adventures.
I really dig those little critters and I am happy that they become common guest in our gardens and parks. Don’t know if it was me, neglecting my surrounding when I was younger… but no!… they seem to invade the city en masse, lately.
Spent 20 minutes with this one that was very busy jumping around, collecting nuts at Schlosspark/Bürgel. Sadly the light is vanishing quite early already and so there is not much time after work. These fotos were shot on highes ISO and they turned out to be soooooo noisy that I would have kicked them in the virtual dustbin, but once more Topaz Laps turned them into something to show… at least when you don’t zoom in.
A field cricket! You hear them, but you rarely see them, as they tend to hear you first and stop making the chrirping sound when you get near. For me they are the messengers of summer and sun. This fellow was crossing the street on which I was riding my bike and was kind of stunned when I parked sprawled on the ground a few meters away. After it got it self together it turned quickly and rand away from me, but I was quicker and so we spent a couple of minutes till I finally managed to get it heating in the right direction with best lighting. A new step for me as well: I knew that getting on eye level with you subject results in better and intimate pictures, but I barely did – here I had the chance. New lesson learned… you need to get dirty to get better pictures. …and yes, I do need a macro lens for sure.
Fossil findings show they were here about a 100 Mil. years ago and they are still around. They are fast – up to 1,5m/s and they can jump as far as 35cm and that all on the surface of water. You have to be somehow impressed, right?
Not much time left for the fine things in live when you gotta job to do. Yesterday I rushed home, grabbed my camera, hopped on my bike and got to the Carl Ulrich Brücke where I got a flat tire. Walking from here, only left me with one hour for getting to the renatured grounds on the Fechenheim side – not much, but it turned out to be worthwhile.
I already could hear this buzzard scream, while I was climbing down the steep steps at the bridge. A few meters away there was a tiny path leading to another billabong that I never noticed. Bushes flanked both sides, so I had kind of a natural cover. Of course it noticed me first and flew off, screaming all the time. I started to whistle an answer, trying to imitate its call and suddenly it flew right above the small trees, right over my head. This game continued for a couple more rounds and ended, while lady with a huge dog appeared and shied it away.
Guess, I never got that close to a buzzard and it was a really touching experience. While looking through the net, I found a recent article from NABU, saying that buzzards are known to protect their nests against jogger, even attacking them. It was screaming before I got near and so I want to believe that it was calling for its offspring and not shouting at me to get lost.
I must have been around 4 or five years old. It was summer and I was sitting with my granny in the garden watching the butterlies. I always wanted to catch one and this very day I managed it. It was sitting on a flower, wings closed above is head an I just walked up to it and crabbed it with two fingers. So happy that I ran up to my granny showing it to her. The next thing I noticed was a strange power on my fingertips. It had the the same colours as the the wings of the butterfly. My Grandpa walked by and explained to me that the butterfly now has to die, because of my touch. I was devastated and since then I only observe them. This red admiral is probably on his big trip and seemed to be as curious as me. He only flew off when I got to close, circling me and landing again in short distance, observing me.
Beauty shot of a Canadian goose – not quite a duck face, 🙂 I like them much better than the Egyptian goose that flood our seas and rivers over the last years. Wonder if this is due to the fact that they are loud an pushy, tend to embark on the other water birds and are loud, where as its Canadian counterpart is gentle and seldom aggressive, though losing its habitat to the “stronger” fellows. This is a problem I am still struggling with my own kids: Shall I raise them to be reserved, generous and helpful in any way and probably get run over and pushed aside by the rude other ones that just don’t care about others or should I tell them to go bully and grab what they want? Guess the truth is that even if I opt for the latter I couldn’t pull it off as I was raised the polite way. At the moment it seems a little outdated but I hope for the long term effect….
It is so much life around the rivers and meadows. Seems to be a good year for dragonflies – they are everywhere and overall. Here are some pictures of banded demoiselles, minding their business.
I find those to be very sociable, funny birds. Always in groups and never alone, they march over fields and meadows in order to find insects. In Bieber the field was mowed and between the cutoff excess the starlings were jumping around, hunting the insects that were not fast enough to find shelter. Happy yummy yum.
One thing I like about being out and capturing the animals around me is the fact that you look more closely to animals that are very common, e.g. ducks. They can be seen on any bit of water around here, no matter if in the center of the city or in a remote river hidden in the woods. Especially the male ones are very nice to look at with quite some color palette on their feather dress. Here are a some shots showing how this drake prepares itself and later starts to orchestrate….
Wagtails are very common around here. Wherever there is water and some bushes you will most likely find one of them, patrolling the shoreline, jumping into the air, flapping and catching insects. Overcast and a little windy, plus the tendency to wiggle and wobble through the air made these shots a challenge. Focus was slow, so was my reaction and I would have needed more focal length to get closer.
Goose as a race seem to be very vehement when it comes to guarding there territory. As soon as other goose appear far at the sky, they start shouting and threatening the new arrivals. Especially the Egyptian goose seems to have this habit. As there is only so much space on smaller lakes the confrontation is unavoidable and only a question of time. Here are two pairs colliding at the ruin of Mühle Renigishausen. Beavers seem to have build a dam and flooded the forrest behind. A really nice spot, but mostly in the shadows.
From time to time I just have to shoot the moon. As much as I love the song by Mando Diao I do love the moon itself. Still unbelievable that humans have already been there. Fun fact: According to the Lunar Society I do own a claim up there, about the size of two soccer fields. Well… unlikely that I will be up there any time soon. Till than the pictures will have to last.
If there’s water, there will be life! In the last couple of years a lot of renaturing efforts have been made around Offenbach. The Hainbach has been “renaturiert”, hence they broke up the sleek and straight riverbed and generated sidearms that will overflow when enough water is present. This generates new sanctuaries for flora and fauna and animals like beavers are coming back. Same was done in a larger scale at river Main. New sidearms have been created.
While it still looks a little bald around the new formed ponds, life seems to get there quickly. Felled trees with clear signs of beaver teeth are present, as well as lots of birds and amphibians as these marsh frogs. The little pond is littered with tadpoles and you can hear the frogs quarks from a far. Shy as they are, they note when you get close. Took me over an hour to figure how to sneak up to them and get some shots, which almost involved me taking off my shoes and shorts and getting into the lake. In the end I managed it through patients, slow tai chi moving and waiting.
Same day on which I had the luck to meet both relatives of the woodpecker family and this fellow was sitting quite low on trunk. Doesn’t it look very stern?
Light was not the best so I had to crank up the ISO and used some tools to make those images look nicer. Location: somewhere between Maunzen- and Jacobiweiher.
They are quite a common guest in the woods around here and they are not even hard to track down once you learned about their call; it sound a little bit like a high pitched laughter. The hard part, is to get a decent shot of the green woodpecker. Quite shy, it stays in the upper reaches of the trees, despite hunting for insects on the ground. So it would take patients and time to get this right. I am not at the point where I am ready to spent a day in a hideout and wait for the bird to come into my viewfinder. All these images here are more or less drive by actions and so this one is shot from below, while it was climbing up a tree and singing… eh.. laughing at me, when on top. 😉
This was taken at the Jacobiweiher.
This was an early trip to Maunzenweiher mostly due to the time change – summer time, although it is still freezing at night. I sadly missed the dispute between two goose couples. Basically they were fighting for being close to me, as I was having a croissant for breakfast. They had been lamenting and shouting at each other for minutes when finally one took off darting at the other couple. Lots of spray and splash and then they went off the other direction, leaving me with my croissant on the muddy floor and this one shot that depicts one goose approaching and shouting for the third attack.
Afterwards the couple that was already close to me came by and started shouting and head banging at me. Probably this is how they beg for food – they got none!
Taking a longer walk from the Schlosspark Rumpenheim back home this buzzard was waiting on a tree besides the dam. I was on the dam and on the perfect eye level – sadly it was facing the wrong direction and the sun was right behind it. Too late I noticed that is was actually a couple, but having Spike on a leach dragging me away it is wonder that I even captured it. A lot of retouching later…
We got quite used to the grey herons. In the last ten years you can find them around almost every billabong, but the white ones, especially the bigger ones, I did not encounter the frequently. This one was very shy and when I crushed into the scene with my bike and its screeching brakes, it was clear that he had a keen eye on me. Half the way on the ladder to the nearby perch it flew off and left me with at least two nice images. Need to learn how to approach shy animals.
Ahhh mating season! Although these shots were from last weeks visit to Maunzenweiher where it was still freezing cold (see the ice the birds sit on?) the first spring feelings among the mandarin ducks were already sensible. There was a lot of pushing, shoving and fighting going on among the colourful drakes. It was almost noon but sun was weak and hanging low, if at all. Most of these shots are retouched and still are far from perfect, but they tell the story.
