Final Encore

More attitude in Large.

This morning I stopped by a dam on the Boardman River.  Often ducks of many kinds gather there.  When I arrived there were 3 mergansers... two clicks and they departed.  Bummer.  So I had a choice, find another spot or park it on my travel stool and enjoy the cold sunny morning.  I chose to hang out and see if any feathered creatures stopped back by.  It was a long wait, but eventually one, two, three, four and more came flying in to dive, feed and preen.  This redhead female landed out in the middle and started to preen.  She was a little far away for my lens, but I was tickled to have a subject that was doing more than the slow paddle. :)  I stared shooting and didn't stop for probably 20 minutes as she groomed her feathers, dipped her head and splashed away.  She seemed to catch on to me at some point and (lucky for me) she wasn't shy.  In fact, she moved closer and closer performing all her best 'bathing moves'. :)  In the end she was just a few feet from me, flapping her way into a stretch over and over again.  This is a shot from her final performance (seemingly just for me).  After this, she paddled off to the other side of the river and I returned to my car with a big smile on my face.

More of the bathing beauty on flickr from here.