Making The Best Of A Bad Photograph

Further to my previous post, I thought I'd go through some of the awful photos I mentioned from Windermere Basin.  Even barely-focused, extremely distant shots can sometimes be of use in figuring out what the heck you're looking at, if you get things that can be ID'd by large-scale colour patterns or size relative to other known birds.



This is probably the best of the lot, because it is at least marginally in focus despite the horrific glare. You can see the white blob wrapping around the back of the head of the male Bufflehead in the very center. Around it are multiple Ruddy Ducks, which have a white cheek and black cap (best seen on the one on the far left) and tend to swim with their tail cocked up (as with one of the group of three just right of center).



The white blob on the right is, I'm assuming, a Snow Goose. It's smaller than the Canada Goose beside it, and doesn't look like it has the long neck or dark feet of a swan.



The blurry shadow on the right is a Double-crested Cormorant - note how it's sitting very low in the water, with a long neck and long beak sticking out.



The three on the back left are Scaups, I think (don't know whether Lesser or Greater), based on the white body with black at either end.  A Ring-necked Duck would have a larger black patch on the back, extending down the sides.  Just to the right of those three is something I'm going to call a Northern Shoveler based on that bright chestnut patch surrounded by white.



Here's the size difference in gulls that I was talking about last time. Look at the Canada Goose in the background, then at the little white gull-blob front and center, then look at the monster gull at the front left. Maybe a second-winter Great Black-backed? You can kind of see a dark spot at the end of the bill, and the wings/sides are more brownish than black.

I think there's an American Coot on the front right, too.  Smaller duckish bird, overall black with a white bill. The white speck of the beak could be just a trick of the light, but it showed up in a couple other shots too so I'm willing to give it a pass.



And here's the possible black-headed gull (Laughing?  Franklin's?).  This is extremely distant and the focus is crap, so once again it's possible that it's just a trick of lighting, though it also looked similarly dark-headed in the few other shots it appeared in. So who knows? Maybe I'll have to go back next weekend and take another stab at it.