(Flight of Spring Ducks?)
Okay, it’s a bit much to mix the wonderful sonnet below, or at least part of it, with photographs of a Mallard drake taking flight, but has “a bit much” ever been much of a restraint for me?
From John G. Magee’s wonderful sonnet, High Flight, 1941….
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of….
(For the rest of this inspiring piece, and more on the 19 year old RCAF pilot from the USA who wrote it not long before his death in combat, see this link:
Magee High Flight
And now for the “Mallard takes to the skies” images….
Click photos to enlarge them; click the x (top right of images) to close a set.
You can enlarge a single photo even more, and in a new tab, by
finding and clicking on the photo data box bottom left of each image.
These 11 images represent my first success in trying to capture this action. I was very fortunate with the light, and am surprised that the shutter speed was adequate to capture the action. What I’m happiest about, with this hand-held photography, is that I was able to keep the duck in the middle of each frame during the two seconds (according to my camera’s date/timer) that it took to shoot this content….
Here are all 11 photos in one tiled group:
birds & musings 