Mallards: water droplets and specula.

I really struggled to choose my blip today: I went to the large pond on Wandsworth Common, and got pictures of mallards, Egyptian geese and goslings, tufted ducks and ducklings, &c. I really wanted to blip a picture of a tufted duck silhouetted against mercurial water, but am trying to exercise some restraint; I blip a lot of waterfowl, so feel I ought to at least try to mix it up a bit style-wise. There was also a particularly handsome male tufted duck... I'll upload them to my "blip alternatives" tab on BlipFolio (have to start somewhere...).

This mallard had perched on the edge of a pontoon to groom herself: I like the way that the water flicked off her foot as she lifted it to scratch her head. Both birds in the picture are females; their specula (sing. speculum) are stunning, with the foreground one demonstrating the purple end of the spectrum, while the background one is reflecting slightly further towards the green edge of its colour range.