I’ve been watching this little family of mallards for the last couple of weeks.  They come across the golf course every  morning to go wading in the pond in between Pebble Ridge and Fox Hunt.  I’ve never had my camera with me to photograph them, though, and the babies have been growing up.

Tonight, finally, I had my camera and the evening light was the textbook definition of “great light”.  I did a little dance as we got to the pond and saw sand hill cranes, a great egret, and these guys!  I went down to the water’s edge, and the little guys immediately came swimming over to me.  They reached the bank and climbed up the edge, and I started having to zoom out to keep them all in the frame.

I thought they were going to come climbing up my leg, but they didn’t.  They headed back to the water and started splashing around in it.  I started zooming in on the individual babies.  The parents kept an eye on us from a distance, and didn’t seem bothered by the noise of my shutter.  This was my favorite shot.