Happy Wednesday!  ~  198

Yesterday was one of those rare days when I had no lunch meeting nor engagement so when that happens I grab my camera and head out to see what I can find.  It was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies, puffy clouds, and low humidity.  In other words, perfect!

I actually started out looking for a farm scene to shoot.  After several miles of driving without finding anything that caught my interest I decided to stop by the duck pond.

The duck pond has been a little disappointing for me this year.  Very little activity of late.  There were a couple of swans on the far side of the pond but it would have been impossible to get close enough to get a shot.  So I thought I would go across the highway to the other marsh.  There hasn’t been much there this year either but I was pleasantly surprised to see this pair of Trumpeter Swans rooting around in the grass.

All of a sudden they both started flapping their wings and headed right for me into the water.  Like they decided they should pose for me.  🙂

After posing I guess they decided they needed to primp a little so they climbed up on this dead tree and started grooming themselves.

Camera specs: Nikon D610 | Nikon 80-400 mm lens | ISO 400 1/800 sec @ f8.0 | Manfrotto tripod / ball head

Yes I actually took the time to set up the tripod.  I haven’t had very good results trying to shoot the 80 – 400 mm lens hand-held so I decided to put it on a tripod and I was happy with the results.  It was good to see the swans again up close.  They didn’t seem to mind me at all and swam very close to me from time to time.

I spent about 20 minutes photographing them and it was a great way to spend my lunch break.

That’s it for today.  I hope you enjoy your mid-week hump day.  Thanks for stopping by and be careful.