IF I WATCH LONG ENOUGH, I might see some intriguing animal behaviour that’s never been recorded before. It is this thought that has long driven me as a biologist, film-maker and photographer to wait – and wait – for special moments, and still does.
Perhaps never more so than during the past year, which I’ve spent obsessively photographing stunning, mercurial mandarin ducks in a magical ancient woodland: the Forest of Dean.
The chance to document the rather secret life of arguably the world’s most beautiful duck arose in autumn 2022, when I was canoeing down the scenic River Wye, on England’s border with Wales. As the forest thickened below the imposing crags of Symond’s Yat, I spotted the unmistakeably flamboyant purple, green and orange feathers of three mandarin drakes, huddled together beside a smartly patterned brown and grey female, on a branch overhanging the water. What were these exotic-looking birds doing here in this unlikely spot?
These ‘perching’ wood ducks, which grip branches with long-clawed toes, are native to the Far East. I’d encountered a pair 20 years ago on a mountain lake in Taiwan while directing a film for the BBC. We secured some distant swimming shots, but didn’t go
