There Once Was An Ugly Duckling

I should start this with an apology; there is no such thing as an ugly duckling. The title is not strictly clickbait more word association. Most people remember the song associated with the 18th Century Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, it just plays naturally in your head anytime you see ducklings in the wild. For me my earliest memory is connected to Disney’s 1939 Silly Symphony classic ‘The Ugly Duckling’. This is definitely worth watching again as it is Disney at its most artistic, timeless and beautiful. Long before the commercial beast we know today. Also every troop of ducklings has that one individual slightly slower trailing behind. The odd one out.

I am lucky I live on a river. I see the whole duck courtship that brings ducklings into the world, it takes weeks. It starts in late February, with two drakes trying to get the attention of the mallard. Then, and I have only caught it once in seven years there is a mighty battle and the mallard leaves with her choice, not always the victor. They then enter a courtship. From my house you can catch them walking together in the village or chilling out on my big island. They endlessly hang out together like two teenagers in love. This goes on until April. The young lovers then disappear. Then late May and early June every morning and early evening the mallard returns with a crowd of little ones in tow. That’s how I took my photo.

It sounds easy. It is not. This photo took me two years to take. Three sets of ducklings.

The mother duck is acutely aware of her surroundings. I live in an old abandoned watermill so the high banks and quiet provide some security. If she even gets a sniff of danger she packs up her troop and sails away. The first year I did not stand a chance. Anytime I got close enough they turned tail and off they went. I had to watch from a distance.

The next season I got smarter. I had two dogs but one of them was a super athletic Belgian Shepherd Malinios called Marla who loved to swim. She scared them away every time. She got banished inside every morning and early evening, giving the new family the peace they needed.

I got some great photos but I never got 'the' photo.

Two years in now searching for the amazing photo I got wiser.

During the courtship stage I would put some feed out for the ducks. That year, I would catch them hanging out in my veg garden during the day. They still took an early evening stroll into the village. They still eventually disappeared. Then the mother came back with the ducklings. I think the duck world has an absent father problem. The feed did not work on their return but she was far more relaxed on the property. The truth is the photo is great but not as important as their daily rituals. The moment that the photo became more important than the ritual I enjoyed witnessing daily, then I am creating a problem. The need for the photo should never cause distress to the subject. If I cannot take it without too much intrusion, then it does not deserve to be taken. I can wait again until next season.

Then one day it just happened.

A little pile of cress bursting out of the river gave her the moment of rest and relaxation she needed. I had the time to take the photo. I still believe it is one of the greatest photo I have ever taken.

I had no great equipment.

I took the photo with a Canon G9X. A very solid point and click digital camera that has some good video features. Marla sadly had stolen the camera out of a jacket pocket eighteen months previously and tried to eat it. She went through an eating electronics and the zips off your coat phase. This meant the zoom did not function.

The truth is the zoom is not a great function on a digital camera. You lose time framing the shot and waiting for it to refocus, when you can do all that afterwards in the edit. I think I edited the photo just with the basic windows picture editor that comes as standard. No filters. I used to sell antiques and collectables on EBay. So my requirement for any camera has always been the ability to capture a hallmark on a piece of jewellery. This means it needs to have a lot of megapixels, whatever that means. So I cropped the photo afterwards and ended up with the image I had.

Photographing anything in the wild takes luck and patience. It also takes some planning. I took this photo three years ago. I will be out there again trying to recreate it again this year. I will probably fail again but the truth is there will be a beauty to it, and a beauty to the challenge of trying to achieve it again.

Well this should just be about the photo not all this text about how clever and wonderful the photographer is. The truth is the photo works because of the subject. So that is all I have to offer, I will leave you with a video of The Ugly Duckling read by Stephen Fry from GivingTales.

Thank you for reading my story.

This is my first piece on photography for a challenge called 'Capture The Wild'.

I publish my stuff independently for no other reason that I would rather these strange ideas that rattle around my head from time to time have a place to go.

My reach is decided by you so if you enjoyed this and think it could reach a little further I would love for you to share it.

If not that is also cool.

I have more strange musings here, Enjoy.

Have an awesome day.