January 17, 2011
Pintail at Bosque

The male northern pintail is a beautiful duck, and I was able to get my first good images of one recently at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. There was a small group feeding in one of the ponds close to the Marsh Loop in the morning, and I captured some nice images as they swam across an open area of the pond with no distracting brush. The plain portrait was nice, but not nearly as exciting as getting a good photograph of a pintail being held by a coyote! As we were driving around the Marsh Loop in the afternoon, I spotted a coyote ahead of us trotting down the road in the same direction we were traveling. As I slowly closed the gap between us, I saw that the coyote was carrying a duck of some sort in its mouth. As it rounded a turn in the road, I saw that it was a pintail! We kept following the coyote at a respectful distance, and after a while it turned off the road along a small stream. It went maybe 20 yards (20m) away from the road then paused giving us a great opportunity to photograph it (above). I was surprised that the pintail was still rather lifelike and that it looked rather happy. There's something about the upturned gray part of the pintail bill that makes them look happy to me. The pintail was not only lifelike, but it was in fact alive — it was moving! I was amazed that the coyote put down the pintail for a few minutes after the image above was taken. Then the coyote picked up the pintail, trotted back to the road and kept going. We continued following it along the road, then watched it head out into some grassland and finally disappear into some brush. What a fantastic encounter!

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