Waterfowl

Fifty-one species of duck, goose and swan reach India, and the great majority of them are visitors. They arrive from the north from about October, fill the tanks and jheels and reservoirs through the cold months, and are gone again by March. A wetland that holds four species in August can hold twenty in January. Almost everything on this page is a winter bird.

They are also the most consistently difficult subject on open water, for a reason that has nothing to do with the birds. Ducks sit low. Photographed from a standing position you are looking down at them, the water goes flat and grey behind, and the picture has no depth at all. The whole craft is getting the lens down to the height of the bird — lying on a bund, shooting from the bank at water level, working from a boat. Drop eighteen inches and a mediocre frame becomes a good one.

The other thing worth waiting for is the departure. A raft of geese or ducks does very little for hours and then goes up all at once, and everything interesting about them — the wing pattern, the noise, the sheer number — exists only in those few seconds.