Bufflehead Antics
 

Got onto a group of Buffleheads today wintering in the tailwaters of South Holston Lake in northeast Tennessee (for you racefans...about 15 minutes from Bristol Motor Speedway). These little "butterballs" are much fun to watch. Wish I had time to stay there and get some more of their behavior. Here is a short 30 sec clip taken today:

http://webpages.charter.net/mtnsunfi...uffleheads.wmv

Especially for Dale since he commented on how much he liked watefowl in another recent thread. Wish I had your camera!

Rick

rick,

You need to get another camera!! What an opportunity to shoot some great footage. I know the clip is in reduced resolution, would love to see it in full dv!! What are you shooting with??
Buffleheads are great little diving ducks. when they fly their wings have to go a hundred miles an hour to keep them airborn as diving ducks are always heavy in weight for their size and they have narrow wings. Once going they are reasonably fast. the only duck I like better is the Drake Canvasback, the fastest of all ducks, and by weight our largest of ducks. Do you get a chance to film any of them??

Keep up the shooting and sharing. aAl I got to shoot this time of year is those things that live in the snow!!! can't wait till spring!! If you can, could you wmv you clip in full res and send me it in a private email??

Good and Close
 

That's always entertaining, to watch them this time of year. Did you get a lot more footage? You didn't mention the camera you used. What sort of lens power? Send more of them, anytime.

I posted a larger version on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdGqPiL6-bA. Not sure whether a small clearer or a larger more compressed version is better. Anyway it's not good enough to worry too much about. I want to get back up there sometime soon before they migrate. I didn't have time to stay very long. I want to get some footage of the males dancing and courting the females and displaying at other males. Wind is my biggest problem right now...causes too much scope vibration at the 30x magnification I am using. There are sometimes up to 100 of them in this one spot where they spend the entire winter months.

Dale, we get a very few Canvasback, but it's very infrequent. Hey, I'll trade you some Bufflehead for a couple of gyr's and Snowy Owl!

I still have to use my existing equipment for now. This time I tried the Optura 200 MC minidv with a Nikon TC-E3 ED teleconverter that I normally use with my Nikon Coolpix digital camera. I use a step ring to mate the two. Works all right, but nothing like a prime lens. Lots of fun though.

Rick