Bufflehead

Thanks for choosing my photo Devorah. A little backround on this particular Bufflehead: he lives in the aviary portion of the polar exhibit at the San Diego Zoo along with Longtails, Siberian Red-breasted Geese, Smew and King Eiders. The majority of the birds in this exhibit were raised by a fantastic aviculturist named Arnold Schouten and his wife Debbie in Washington. They are specialists in sea duck species. The Aviculture Society of America just recently had their annual conference (www.asabirds.org) and Mr. Schouten was one of the speakers. The crowd was very pleased to learn what he had to teach about sea ducks.

I am always amazed at the pristine feather condition of waterfowl and especially sea ducks. They do not appear real even when they are only a few feet away. AWESOME!

thank YOU john, for sharing your gorgeous images with my readers! and thanks for the story about the image, too.

John takes some phenomenal photos and am glad that you will be carrying them. Looking forward to seeing more.

Gorgeous photo! Great job of capturing this bird on digital (I guess I can't say "on film"). I agree that the feathers are so perfect and the colors and iridescence so intense it is as if the beautiful duck is not real - and the amazing thing is that the birds in real life are even more lovely!

Clapping,

Chardyspal

That's very nice!

We have a pair of these visit our small pond on the way to their breeding grounds. They are usually here in late March and sure enough, they showed up to grace us with their presence. It was delightful to see them dive for food and pop up in some other place. Thanks for the photo!