Day's End

I guess you can tell I'm on a bit of a bird-in-its-habitat kick lately, as well as having the Florida bug thanks to a return trip there this coming week.

I guess there's not much to say about this one...a few spoonbills flew over me at the end of a great day of bird photography and I surprised myself by nailing a couple shots as they did, but after this one started feeding amongst the mangroves, I knew what shot I wanted. You should have heard me talking this bird into that strip of smooth water from 200yds away!

As a bonus, I THINK there's an alligator in the background above and left of the spoonbill. There were certainly plenty around that area.

I tried to retain just a hint of colour on the spoonbill and even the mangroves in this silhouette...this is as-shot and almost straight from the RAW file with the exception of cloning a few very small OOF branches from the far left.

Thanks for looking (please view larger if you have time!).

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 200-400mm f/4 IF-ED VR @ 330mm
ISO 1250
1/2500sec @ f/10
-1EV
tripod mounted

Processing Notes:
Converted from RAW using Phase One Capture One Pro 7
Minor adjustments using Nik Color Efex Pro 4 and Viveza 2 along with cloning of three OOF branches in PS5
Cropped slightly from sides and converted to originally-envisioned panorama