Greater Sandhill Crane - Bosque del Apache

My first trip to the Bosque - it was fabulous - quite cold (low 20s in the AM light wind) but clear and the birds were close. My wife and I went with a Road Scholar group led by Robert Winslow. I'm sure we will return!

Taken January 4, 2012 8:38AM: Canon 40D 400mm f5.6L 1/1250 f9.0 ISO 640 AE Eval. metering exp comp 0

Full Frame - minimal edits - a minor bit of spot sharpening to compensate for the conversion from RAW

I decided to leave in the oof bird and leading foot - it added a context IMHO. I could add some canvas at the top particularly, but not sure it would add that much overall.

I will look forward to your critiques and suggestions.

Terry

The main bird looks great, and I'm OK with the OOF one in the lower corner (I would eliminate the small black dot over it). Nice light. I do wish for more room above and right (but with no trailing legs there). The primaries look sharper than the face...nothing that an extra round of sharpening would remedy for web. Nice BG, I like the mountains!

Many thanks for your comments, Daniel! I'll take your suggestions!
Terry

Real nice image. Love the light, great background, love the flight pose, and I like the seeing the oof bird below, but would clone out the legs in front of it.
Well done.

I added canvas to the top and cloned out the cut off foot, as suggested. Nice improvements. Thanks for the comments!