Blue Duck in Flight. A Ten Year Mission

tony
November 17, 2019
birds / New Zealand

Ten years ago, while flyfishing my favourite North Island river, a Blue Duck flew down stream past me, so close that I could have reached out and touched it with my rod tip. Since then I have been on a mission to photograph a Blue Duck in flight.

I had been fishing this river for twenty years and this was only the second Blue Duck I had seen on it. I had seen the first one not long before and could hardly believe what I was seeing. Fishing up one of my regular runs a duck was sitting on a rock with the unmistakable profile of a Whio/Blue Duck. I have a soft spot for ducks and Blue Ducks are special, living in clear mountain streams that are ideal fishing rivers and just fabulous places to be.

A local photographer whose work I enjoy once opined that people are either mountain people or beach people and I could not quite relate to that. I wasn’t sure where I fitted into that classification because I love both. I decided that I was a water person as the soothing tug of a mountain stream against my legs brings me a much joy as the caress of a swell while snorkeling or the boisterous tumble of a wave while body surfing. I would not be able to chose one over another.

Back to Blue Ducks. A number of trips wading upstream and down in waders lugging a 500mmf4 lens got me nothing apart from spooked trout at every turn. When I took my rod instead of a camera, I saw ducks and few fish!

Over time Blue Ducks have become easier to locate. My first successful mission was a long drive and a solo hammock camping expedition that was rewarded with some beautiful ducks in early morning golden light. More recently my go to spot has been the Tongariro River in Turangi and it is quite reliable. A recent trip yielded some lovely images of a pair preparing to breed. I had encountered them a couple of weeks before defending their stretch of river against all comers and got a few distant flight shots but nothing like I wanted.

I spotted this Blue Duck sitting on a rock downstream from me.

A extra day off work saw me head south again despite a suspect weather forecast. On a previous trip the forecast had been bad but the weather good. This time the forecast was accurate and I spent a few hours in increasingly heavy rain. I saw one Blue Duck in the distance but by the time I had got down to his stretch of river he had moved on.

Blue Duck from the above image feeding in the rain.

A little later a I saw a duck on the same rock and headed back downstream where he fed for a while before flying upstream.

Heading upstream. Suboptimal view of Blue Duck in flight.

Watching him carefully, I had a fair idea of where he would land so headed back upstream and found him resting on a rock again.

Blue Duck resting on a rock after flying upstream.

Hoping he would follow this fly, rest, feed, rest, fly routine, I aimed to get upstream of him and get down as close to water level as possible. If my plan worked I may have a chance of a flight shot and if everything worked I may manage to get him against a background of river rocks and debris that echoed the colours of his plumage.

Blue Duck feeding upstream. An aquatic invertebrate (probable caddis larva) foraged from beneath a rock can be seen in the bill.

It was a difficult scenario as the bank I needed to descend was large, steep slippery rocks on the outside of a fast deep run and the top was obstructed by rampant Blackberry. With a bit of effort I found a way down and got as low to the water as possible in time to get some shots of him feeding up to the head of the run.

Blue Duck heading back downstream after feeding up to the head of the run.

As though he had read my script, he turned and headed back downstream to rest on his rock.

Blue Duck raising his head as a prelude to launching into upstream flight.

Just when he looked as though he had missed the final cue in the script and seemed to be settling in for a long rest, the rain stopped, the sky brightened and he stretched up and looked around. Quickly adjusting my exposure for the increased light, I crossed my fingers that my plan was coming together.

Next second he was airborne, my focus cursor on him, continuous Group Area autofocus and shutter blasting at 9 frames a second as he flew past at eye level. Pretty sure I wasn’t breathing.

Reviewing the images on my LCD, I was elated. A whole sequence of close full frame images with a nice clean background with the colour palette I had hoped for. For a day that had been looking like a washout, the end result was incredible. The ten year wait made it all the sweeter.

Final useful frame in the sequence as the Blue Duck was directly across form me before angling around the curve in the river. — Final useful frame in the sequence as the Blue Duck was directly across from me before angling around the curve in the river.

Photos with Nikon D850 with battery grip and Nikon 500mm f5.6PF lens. This was one of those occasions where the D850 was a better option than the D500 which would have cropped in too close. This was another illustration that to get a good photo all you need is a good camera.