Below the surface

A picture of a duck floating on water is just a picture of a duck floating on water. While I have many "normal" animal pics I thought I'd try and capture the scene from a different perspective. I spotted this female Mallard sticking her butt in the air and initially thought that that would be it.

I walked to her and saw that she was ducking (no pun) her head under the water to reach the algae at the bottom of the pond. Fortunately it was a bright day, the sun had lowered and the water was clear enough to see straight through with minimal reflection. She was too busy dabbling to pay any attention to me, so I set my shutter to 1/1000, composed my frame, then waited for her next head dive.

It looks like she has two eyes on the side of her head, but you can thank the wonders of refraction for that little quirk.