Exotic Ducks, Wood & Mandarin
February 2006 - 18 and 21 photos

Some ducks are quite exotic in appearance. The wild American Wood Duck and the Chinese Mandarin Duck are two very colorful birds that belong to the same duck family. They actually are so colorful that they look like painted decoys, and are smaller than typical ducks that we see around here. The Mandarin duck has vertical rudder like feathers on his wings, called wing sails. They both have fancy crests that can be raised up.
To see these ducks up close in larger size photos, see my Beus Pond Up Close page
Beus Pond up close Beus Pond 2009

There are two seperate groups of photos shown below
Scroll down to see them
Chinese Mandarin Duck on Jordan River SLC
I have wanted to get photos of the Chinese Mandarin duck for quite some time now. It is rare to see this duck in North America. They are mostly found in China and Japan. During the summer they are also found in parts of Europe and Russia. I have been looking all over for this rare bird and ran across a site on the internet where the photographer David Wheeler mentioned that he found one down on the Jordan River in Salt Lake City.   David Wheeler's Page   Lucky me, the little guy was still there and I got my photos.

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Chinese Mandarin Duck

   to look at these photos
click   'Mandarin Ducks'   or   'Wood Ducks'   buttons
21 photos             18 photos

American Wood ducks on Ogden's Beus Pond
Since I was able to get such good photos of the Mandarin duck, I wanted better photos of the wild American Wood duck to go with him. I knew that the Wood Ducks wintered on Bues Pond in Ogden and went up with the idea of getting some close-up photos. I couldn't get close enough to them, so put on my fishing boots and waded out into the middle of the pond. Hey! don't laugh, it worked, but I nearly froze. What we do for good photos!

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American Wood Duck

Related Photos

More waterfowl pages located on this site
Beus Pond 2009 Beus Pond 2009

Waterfowl Ponds 2005
Waterfowl Ponds 2005


Bird Refuge 2005
Bird Refuge 2005


Pelicans 2005
Pelicans 2005



These photos were taken with a Canon EOS 20D, 8.2 Megapixel SLR Camera using a Canon 100-400mm telephoto zoom lens. The original photos were taken at aprox 3050 x 2000. These photos are set to 750 x 500 for faster loading. You are welcome to look at or download any of the photos. If you use them on any other webpage, please give credit and refer back to me.
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