Turnstone on the rocks bartender....

Epic winter conditions on Lake Superior, (Minnesota side), this year led to some rather unusual circumstances during spring migration. This image was made late in the month of May, when pack ice could still be seen from the shoreline to far out into the lake. This was the first time I've observed shorebirds in breeding plumage on ice...pretty cool, no pun intended. All of white in this image is ice. (May 24th?)...I think. Canon7d, Sigma50/500os, iso800, 1/1000, f9, small crop, NR to the bg and some of the fg, USM. Comments and critiques welcome. Yeah, yeah I know...remove the little grass bit on the ground to the right of the bird....a few "imperfections" are okay :)
Regards,
Shawn Zierman.

Very cool to see this shorebird on ice.
Good IQ. Good HA. Good techs.
Great shooting angle and I am OK with the grass.
What is the smudgy area over the tail? Is that OOF ice or PP work?
Would have liked a bit more legs showing,
Gail

Lovely Shawn. What a fantastic image. :S3:

The bird pops. Nice cred color in the plumage. Excellent find and image, Shawn.

Thanks folks for the great feedback. Gail, here is a screen capture of the RAW file as I processed it. This would be full frame with only the exposure and contrast sliders having been adjusted. The blur in question is pretty much straight out of camera, enhanced a smidge by the gentle NR run over that area...I too now count myself amongst the shorebird feet lovers, though I used to wonder what the craze was all about...I get it now :) The ice was actually pretty dirty and there was more of that grassy stuff visible if I went with a higher angle, so I settled for a cleaner, visually simplified comp, but had to give up some lovely orange leg and foot action....I've another frame I'll post some time of a turnstone on the ice with full leg and foot action :)

It's always interesting to see how other photogs process their work, thanks for sharing that Shawn.
I'm partial to turnstones anyways but yeh, nice and sharp, creamy BG\FG fade, only wish a bit more leg..

I too really like Turnstones and try to catch them every chance I get. This is a very unique shot of one as I don't associate them with cold and snowy conditions. The techs look good and I like the crisp detail you have captured. Great looking contrasty colors against all that snow. Well seen and captured Shawn.

Very nice shot! Love the exposure, pose and HA! Well done!