Metro Wood Ducks In Spring

Twin Cities Wood Ducks in Spring

Wood Ducks in the Minneapolis St Paul Metro

Wood Ducks. Beautifully tough to photograph.

Wood ducks, we see them everywhere. I, like most love to see wood ducks. Woodies are some of the most colorful ducks. When the light hits the drake just right you can see a plethora of colors and irredecence beyond compare. But captuuring this color isn’t as easy as watching them.

First of all these ducks are skittish. They don’t often stick around to get a full frame image of them. It’s typical to approach a wood duck and watch it swim away or fly off. I haven’t spent the needed time to scout them and photograph them because they are so common and so difficult to get close to. I make the mistake to avoid common birds. Last week I made the decision to scout for wood ducks in the north metro. Many ponds had wood ducks and a pond in Roseville City park was the standout with numerous woodies in it. 

I had observed the wood ducks continually swimming back to the same shoreline for an hour or so. I set up on the ground in a position to gather the right light with the anticipation the wood ducks would return to this area. The ducks made attempts to revisit this windless well lit area but there was just to much foot traffic to bring them close. So I did my best and took a few hundred shots at long distance. I gave up after 30 minutes or so and walked towards the softball fields where there were other ponds around. A single drake was posted up on a log. I worked my way like a ninja into an area where I could photograph this drake wood duck. Luckily for me I was disguised well in a camo jacket and behind a fallen log. I snapped the images of the wood duck drake on the log for another 30 minutes.

To an extent I was both lucky and unlucky. On this photography trip I believe I created my own luck by learning this area for more than an hour before I gave my photography skills a shot.

Roseville Wood Ducks

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