Mother Mallard & Duckling

Adorable downy duckling detail in large ("L").

I went to Wandsworth Common this afternoon to try the 70-200mm lens; what fun it is! It is is heavy, but handles beautifully with smooth and light zoom action, and fast autofocus: I've no doubt that it'll take some getting used to (I was a bit shaky with it I think), but was pleased with a lot of the results from today's first foray.
The light was bad frankly (it has been very overcast all day) so I pushed the sensitivity up to ISO800 and I'm very pleased with how clean, crisp, contrasty, and colourful the pictures still are. There is some reduction in contrast I think (although that could have been the light), but nothing dramatic.

This mother mallard has 8 tiny mallardlings: it was easy to get this picture of only two of them, because the other 7 were struggling to hop over the edge of the boardwalk to the right of frame. There were seriously cute; I think that they're only a couple of days old, because I didn't see this brood of 8 on Saturday, and they're very clumsy. I almost got an adorable photo of one trying to right itself after falling over, except I had it on F2.8 and the v. narrow DOF meant that that particular duckling was very out of focus which was a shame.

I changed lenses in a café overlooking the common (I bought a coffee beforehand); the original switch was fine because the café was quiet, but I didn't like all the attention when I returned to a busier café and a man started asking about my lens... Hum, I'm feeling much more wary about cameras in cafés now...