Each year I have a few bird photography trips that are rituals for me. Most recently being the Snow Geese in Middle Creek. Quickly following that incredible experience, I then head out to Maryland’s Eastern Shore to the bank of the Choptank River.

Down a quiet street sits a cement bulkhead that is fondly known as “The Wall of Shame.” This wall is well known to nature photographers near and far, and to the migrating ducks as well.

The price of admission is a bag of corn tossed into the water. The ducks get fed and the photographers get incredible, gallery level images of at least five species of ducks.

It’s easy for any photographer to click hundreds of images in a short period of time, but it’s not as easy as one might think. See…the ducks dive and you get some lovely butt shots.

Or you manage to catch them ‘fluffing’ their wings dry from the corner of your eye. It happens for a moment and of course they do it facing away from you.

Or they fly in really really fast…really far away.

It’s certainly not from a lack of trying, or hunkering down along the rocks in the bitter winds for hours. But certainly, it shows that patience is needed for bird photography so that you can “get the shot.”