The second dam at Midlands Saddle and Trout Resort is outside the main gate and down the hill across road. It is much larger  and has good populations of  Yellow-billed Duck and Red-knobbed Coots. The marginal reeds host Lesser Swamp Warblers (Cape Reed Warbler) and some Red Bishops and Cape Weavers which are mainly in the large reed beds below the dam wall. White-throated Swallows forage over the water and we found a pair nest building beneath one of the jetties. Spur-winged and Egyptian Geese were seen passing overhead and a couple of Black-headed herons were seen from time to time hunting in the vicinity.

I really wanted a decent flight picture of Yellow-billed ducks but didn’t quite manage what I had been after. I would have preferred some separation between the birds but they were so close ( this is a full frame image out of the D800) that this was the only image with them both clean in the frame. There is some separation due to the near bird being sharp and the farther one being a bit soft due to limited depth of field, and I decided to accentuate the perceptual separation in post by slightly reducing the contrast and saturation of the second bird. Our eyes by nature are drawn to areas of sharpness, contrast and saturation so by altering the balance of these aspects between the two the eye is drawn more to the main subject.

The Red-knobbed Coots, as usual, episodically explode into pattering attacks and dash madly across the surface at each other and made for nice action targets. Being a larger body of water it is important to keep your profile low or concealed by background elements as the birds alter their flight paths to avoid you if you are too obvious.

This last image illustrates the idea of using vegetation behind yourself to reduce visibility to the birds. By standing in front of this tree, my outline was broken and I was in shade and the flying ducks would approach much more closely than when I was standing away from it. Away from the tree I was backlit by the sun creating an obvious human silhouette and the ducks would alter their flight path to pass much further away. Edin took this photo from the side of the dam which makes it seem as though I was not quite in front of the tree, but from the direction the birds were approaching I was completely concealed within the outline of the tree and this contributed to me to getting the image of the 2 flying ducks.