For me????

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Exchange of nest material between two Brandt's Cormorants. Photographed at the Coast Guard Jetty in Monterey, CA. Thanks for looking. JR

Canon 40D, 400F5.6, 1/800s, F8, ISO-400, Manual Exposure, Handheld

[Daniel Cadieux]

Tough light too photograph in, some fill would have helped with the shadows and with the near bird's eye. The blues in the BG are a bit much I'm afraid. I'd also crop away about half of the space at left. I do love the interaction with the vegetation exchange, very nice.

[Steve Maxson]

I like the behavior you captured, John. In my experience working with blue-eyed shags (also a cormorant) in Antarctica, it was always the male that brought in the nesting material to give to the female at the nest and they only did this during midday. I'm guessing that your birds are behaving similarly.(?) I haven't seen Brant's Cormorants up close like this - I'm wondering if the blues on the throat are really as intense as indicated here. Overall, I tend to agree with Daniel's comments.

[Stephen Stephen]

Nice behavioural image John. I agre with Dan and Steve regarding the saturation.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great interaction and you handled the harsh light well. I agree on cropping a bit off the left.

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Thank you all for your comments. As for the cropping, I literally tried dozens of different crops and thought this was the most balanced and pleasing. Partially, the rationale for the crop was a previous comment on one of my images suggesting that it's okay to center birds interacting. On the other hand, I was tempted to crop much closer focusing more on the heads but I didn't want to loose the feather detail in the bodies.

And yes, the blues - both in the eyes and the throats - are really that intense. I guess I could tone down the background blue a bit to keep the focus on the birds.

And Steve, this image was taken at 5:30 pm in the afternoon. Also, at another colony I observed this behavior early in the morning. So, at least here in CA these cormorants behave differently than the ones you observed in Antarctica.

Thanks. JR

[Steve Maxson]

Hey John. Thanks for the explanation on the blues and the behavior timing.