I was a little worried that photographing the mandarin ducks in the evening would be difficult, and I found out that it is in fact nearly impossible. The pond is man-made and square in shape and only two of the sides are accessible – both of them providing back-lit conditions in the evening. And it figures that the all the duck food seems to be in the furthest, shadiest, most inaccessible corner so the ducks headed straight there! There was a very brief moment where I got some side-lighting and that’s when I took this picture, but it turned out that it doesn’t help if the ducks are approachable when there’s nothing but cold water between you and your subject. So the picture is an approx. 50% crop of the original.

The odds are definitely stacked against evening photography at the duck pond. In the morning however, the opposite applies and this leaves me hoping that the ducks will still be there on Saturday. Because on weekday mornings, there’s this little thing called work which apparently is more important than hobby. Even when we have gorgeous mandarin ducks in Loos!