Spoonbill

[Kurt Bowman]

It's not common for us to see many Spoonbills here in AZ. This one has been hanging out (on and off) at the Riparian water ranch for the last couple of years. We named her Rosie.

Sony A1
200-600mm with 1.4 TC
shot at 840mm
1/5000 at f/9
ISO 800

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Very nice low angle. Wonderful colours and pose of the bird. Nice reflection too.

[Dorian Anderson]

I saw this bird in December of 2020 - #269 on my AZ state list! Loving the lighting and low angle, Kurt. The full reflection is also very nice, so good work not to go in so close that you clipped it. I generally like to see more leg, but that's far from a deal breaker. Curious if you can lighten the top of the bill to show a bit more detail. There also appears to be a fair amount of noise throughout the image. Easy fix if you want to address it.

[Steve Kaluski]

I like the overall comp and the mud dripping off the bill, but I feel both colour and sharpness could be improved to bring more from the plumage. Was the image under exposed Kurt, as the noise is very noticeable and at ISO800 there should be almost zero, it might also be couple with adding Contrast too??? When reduced it does help the BKG, but not significantly.

TFS
Steve

[Randy Stout]

Kurt:

Great POV ,eye, soft background, reflection. Agree about the contrast on the bird. Just a little tweaking helped to separate the bird and standout more.

Randy

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Kurt, interesting place for a spoonbill to be. I like the image, the low POV, reflection, soft tones and complimentary background. I agree with the comments others have made. Thank you for sharing.