Frederick the Duck is an old friend from last year, who any longer-term readers should recognize.  He made featured photos several times last winter, since his unique situation makes him a perfect subject.

Frederick is a domestic duck living at a nearby park.  I’m not sure how he got there, but he isn’t able to leave, so his winter is spent inhabiting a small portion of the pond near a creek, where the ice never fully closes in.  It’s a lonely way to spend the winter, and moreover it offers very limited opportunities for him to find food.  So since discovering him there last December, I’ve been visiting him several times each week with bags of cracked corn.  (A friend and fellow photographer does the same, and additional piles of corn seem to indicate that other people do, too.)

A tight situation and general familiarity with people make Frederick easily approachable.  He won’t let you get close enough to touch him, but his empty belly will drive him to come right up to the shore and wolf down corn while I’m sitting there, and as long as I don’t move, he doesn’t seem to mind my being there (but as soon as I do make a move, he goes quacking back across his open water).

In the meantime, I’m able to get some wonderful up-close shots of him eating, swimming, and if I’m very luck on a given day, doing his “Duck Dance.”  The Duck Dance usually happens when he’s done eating, and appears to be a combination of preening and playfulness; he splashes and struts and flaps his wings, and is generally a ham.

Shooting wildlife photos of Frederick isn’t the same as shooting, say, California Condors.  He’s a domestic duck in a county park, and while I wouldn’t say he’s tame, he is much more tolerant of humans than his wild cousins.  But I don’t see that as taking away from the experience of working with him as a subject.  I don’t see that his behaviors and activities are any less valid – or valuable – just because he isn’t completely wild.  Quite the opposite, I very much value my time with Frederick.  He’s an uncommon open door in the world of wildlife photography, a subject who won’t fly off at the slightest wrong move.

Moreover, I think of him as a friend.  We have a strange, mutually beneficial relationship.  I feed him through the winter and in return, he lets me take photos of him.  Not so different than doing model shoots in exchange for a disk.  Of course, come summer and the return of his wild cousins, he pretends he doesn’t know me – he’s too busy trying to impress the wild girl ducks.

Frederick at eye-level, looking slightly menacing as he goes for his corn.