thanks. truth be told due to the GBBC this weekend i was on a mission to get some killer shots.

These are gorgeous. Perhaps you can answer an image question for me. I'm pretty new to this forum and even newer to posting pictures. I just posted a small one today for the first time. How do you post these large images here? I kept getting my image rejected until I reduced it so much that it's now the size of a postage stamp. I must be missing something because I see other images here that are larger with great resolution such as these you've posted. Thanks for sharing your beautiful pics and for any help you (or anyone) can offer. Jann

Thanks! I seldom use a tripod, but since I was in the car, I just balanced the Canon 400mm lens against the window. My Canon EOS 40D needs strong light from behind and to be close to work well, so I was glad the Buffleheads came as close as they did..about 40 feet away while fighting. As to why they were fighting, Buffleheads are monogamous, at least for a few years at a time, so apparently the newcomer male was defending his mate of choice that year. Perhaps she'd not yet made up her own mind because she kept approaching the single male, bobbing her head, and he'd bob back. Whenever he noticed this the first male would attack and drive the single male away, even though the single male kept trying to continue his foraging dives between attacks. These sea ducks are among the last to migrate to their breeding grounds in Canada, where they use Northern Flicker and Pileated Woodpecker holes by small lakes (link to Bufflehead pdf files http://seaduckjv.org/infoseries/buff_sppfactsheet.pdf ) For the Wood Ducks, I crawled into an old slab wood lean-to blind and balanced the lens against a cross bar. They are very jittery and I've not been able to sneak up on them since

Whoops, forgot to add the pic file.