Although my photos are poor, I want to thank Jeff for allowing me to have any photos of "my own" to include in my galleries. The reason for this is that I stupidly left my camera bag on the counter when I left this morning, so I took a few shots through my scope using his camera. When I 1st saw Jeff my 1st words were "We'll find a great bird today, because I don't have my camera". That's one facet of Murphy's Law that worked out alright on this day since Jeff had his!

Jeff has photos showing all of the field marks much better in all cases. This would have been a good shot if the Mottled hadn't turned it's head just as I shot. Still, the nice feather edgings to the body feathers (these were actually much warmer and browner in tone than my photos indicate), and narrow but distinct rear border of the speculum can be seen. The angle of the head obscures the gape spot and beautiful buffy, almost orange at times, unmarked throat. Another subtle feature is the weakness of the eyeline and the way the crown lightens on the forehead compared to the female Mallard just behind. Black Ducks are much darker in this respect than Mottled's