Wood Stork

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image recently at Lake Mirror in Lakeland, Florida. To some these birds are ugly, to me they are unique and a treasure. So threatened by lack of habitat for breeding. They breed deep in the swamps and need high water levels around the nests or they just do not breed that year. The high water protects the nest by using alligators to keep ground/swimming predators away from the nests. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED shot at 240mm (360mm FFE)
1/1000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering -1/3 EV ISO 250 AWB, camera supported by a monopod
Post processed in Lightroom 6 and Photoshop Elements 10
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Marina Scarr]

This is a very fine detailed portrait, Joe. It's great to see all those feather details and details in the scales.

[gail bisson]

You are getting very good at these bird portraits.
Excellent comp and feather details.
I love grey BG's and this compliments this prehistoric bird beautifully.
I am with you in the opinion that they are terrific birds,
Gail

[shane shacaluga]

Wow!! Awesome details and love the composition!

TFS

[Lorant Voros]

Super! I love the nice detail, the ancient look of the bird, clear BG. I feel the crop is a little tight, but it works. Well done!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Just simply stunning ,Joseph . Well captured and processed , love the ton of details to look at and the overall great tonal range .
Really , really nice work :5

TFS Andreas

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting. Very much appreciated...