Barnegat Purple Sandpiper

[Paul Lagasi]

From a recent trip to Barnegat Light...at least 20+ Sandpipers that day but due to low tide, getting a low angle from the jetty was pretty tough. This was one of the better ones, where it was sitting up on a rock, feeding.
Heavy crop. Lovely bird. You can see the faint purple, where it gets its name from.
Masked and added gussian blur to background.
Thanks for looking

D700
500mm f4
iso-500
1/640
f/6.3
handheld
AP

[Bill Dix]

Nice one, Paul. Lovely background, nice pose and HA, and I like the shell pile. Shows his signature yellow legs nicely; too bad about the feet. The bird seems just a bit soft on my screen, probably due to the heavy crop.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the hint of purple showing on the feathers...very neat. I like the overall pose too, but I wish this guy would have perched higher to see the feet too. I'd see if you could reduce some of the highlights on the shells. Quite nice overall.

[Paul Lagasi]

Thanks Bill and Dan
Bill..checked the image at home, your bang on, large original is much better than BPN size..I'll probably rework this, so its not such a heavy crop

Dan....Its the first time I've gotten and image that shows the color, when I rework this I'll tone down the shells..

[denise ippolito]

Paul, I like the pose and the background. The shells really make this special to me. The hint of purple is always a nice touch. I agree w/ toning down the highlights. Nicely done.:)