Hi Harmon,
As with the photo o your friend, I think this duck photo is a little washed out too. I've brought the exposure back a little on the front half, and carefully tweaked the midtones, along with a bit of colour adjustment (reduced aquas, increased the rest) - and gave it a bit of a sharpen too.
Hey Colin, for some reason I could only see half of the duck with your enhancement, but what I could see really looked good, thanks.
The edited versions bring out the detail very well - we had 13 of these mallards in the back garden on Wednesday.