Crystal Springs is in southeast Portland, across the street from Reed College. Its ponds not only play host to a number of duck species right in the city but also provide a close view of usually reclusive species like wood ducks and bufflehead. The animals are wild but are very conditioned to human presence. You won’t think you’re in the wilderness with the nearby golf course and the sounds of the surrounding city, but it is a delightful oasis.
There is a small fee charged from March through September if you’re not a member of the Friends of the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden.
"That’s no moon, that’s a space station!" — Obi-wan Kenobi
I’m so used to seeing nutria here in the Northwest that it always catches me by surprise to see another rodent swimming through the water. I was at the gardens one evening and had actually seen a nutria a few minutes earlier, but even at a glance realized this rodent had a different profile in the water than a nutria would.
I snapped off a few pictures while it swam off, and started to question whether I really saw what I thought I saw. I saw a nutria shortly thereafter where my so-called beaver had gone and was a little disappointed and confused at my mistake. But then another large rodent swam from the area and headed in my direction.
It soon submerged but was easily visible in the clear shallow water, and as it swam below me and under the bridge, its large flat tail was clearly visible. Turns out my first instinct was right after all.
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An Eye For An Eye
Bufflehead are really small and usually shy ducks, so one of the challenges in photographing them is simply to get close enough without disturbing them. It's much easier if they're habituated to people, such as this male at the Garden. The challenges don't end with getting close, however, as the males present the same challenge as shooting our cat Scout: patches of white against patches of near-black (or even true black in Scout's case). Do you expose for the highlights or the shadows?
At least Scout has striking golden eyes that really draw the eye when looking at her pictures — an important point in animal photos, where the eye can play such a crucial role. With bufflehead though, not only do they have black eyes, but the eyes are set into the dark part of the head, making it much harder to not have the eye disappear into a blob of darkness. I had overcast lighting for this bufflehead which made the exposure choice much easier. I only had to wait until I had both a background that I liked and for the little duck to angle its head just so that a bit of light reflected off its eye to make it stand out from the dark feathers. |
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Knockout Punch
A preening bufflehead accidentally knocks itself out at the Gardens. Some ducks have bright orange legs, but bufflehead have gone the pink route.
No bufflehead were harmed in the making of this picture. |
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It Worked, Grandma, It Worked
One of my favorite memories of my grandmother involves these lovely ducks. My grandparents had a wooden cabin that sat next to a small clear lake where we’d go swimming and canoeing. We were visiting one spring when I was a young boy, and Grandma was sitting in front of the large picture window.
She believed wood ducks had started nesting out front and thought she saw one of the parents fly into the nest. She called me over to sit with her by the window and join her in her watch. We waited to see if it would come back out again, so that I could see it drop to the ground and head towards the lake. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The duck never showed, but her love for them did, as did her desire to pass on that love to me. |
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Green and Yellow
I was a little crestfallen when I downloaded this picture to my computer and saw the beautiful picture marred by the out-of-focus white feather floating in the water. I could edit it out of course, and I might yet add an additional version like that, but on the other hand maybe not everything needs to be perfect.
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Fall Swim
One of the advantages of shooting at Crystal Springs is that you can take advantage of the tree reflections in the water from some vantage points. This means green water much of the year, but during the fall you can get some lovely yellow or orange water. With woodies, practically any color reflection you choose will match a part of the duck's coloration.
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The little wood duck on the left is rapidly leaving the cute phase behind and heading headlong into the awkard phase, the adult on the right shows the promise of what it is to come (for the male ducklings at least).
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Black & White
Though the most common race of Canada goose is so prevalent that it has become a nuisance in some areas, I love the formal black and white beauty of the goose’s face. I even like the small flock that hangs around the fields and streams near work, despite the mess they make of the sidewalks, as they provide a daily reminder of the common beauty that can be found outside my cubicle walls.
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There are a few pied-billed grebes here. These are little birds compared to a mallard or goose and fairly timid by comparison, this was the only one that swam anywhere close to me. Fortunately, most of the other ducks were drawn off by a family tossing cracked corn near the bridge, so I was able to take some nice pictures during the few seconds it was in view.
During the summer when they are in their breeding plumage, pied-bills have a white bill (which gives them their name) with a black vertical band in the middle, but in their nonbreeding plumage they have a more nondescript bill like this one.
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I’m Batman
This little grebe was floating along early one morning, mostly sleeping, in one of the ponds at the Gardens. It mostly seemed to just float with the water, although it likely did a little steering with its webbed feet as well. I waited until its eyes were directly lined up with my own, the way that its head is tucked down between its breast and wing reminds me of Batman with his cape pulled up and covering his face.
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I hope these pictures show the uncommon beauty in these common ducks, taken in waters reflecting the fall colors at the pond.
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Plain and Pretty
As hard as it can be to make a nice photograph of something as common as a male mallard, it’s even worse when it comes to the females, which are just as common but lack the beautiful green heads. One of the nice things about photographing at a duck pond like Crystal Springs is not just that you get to watch the ducks up close, and not just that you can choose nice backgrounds that reflect into the water, but also that you can spend enough time in one spot and observe their behavior.
I’m always fascinated by how animals have adapted to tasks that we’d solve with our dextrous hands and opposable thumbs and prehensile tails, like this preening female who cleans her feathers by passing them through her bill. |
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Impressions
A big fountain was ruining the quiet waters I had hoped to photograph, but in this one small area the water reflected just right to give an impressionistic look thanks to the overlapping ripples and reflected colors of the foliage.
Once I found my background, it was a matter of waiting to see if a duck would swim through it. Most of them avoided the area, but this male finally obliged for one brief moment. A fence precluded getting a lower angle on the shot, but I still like the colors that surround this common beauty. |
