We took a family road trip over the last few days out to the western New South Wales town of Bourke at the edge of the arid lands that occupy most of Central Australia. It was about 1600 km round trip. Bourke is situated on the Darling River Australia's longest at over 2,700 km long. This river has a massive catchment from northern Australia and even though Bourke itself has had only 100 mm of rain this year, the river was full with water from rains in the far north earlier this year. This water brings a rich supply on marine life, in particular fish, which then attracts the water birds. Where I live on the east coast of Australia there are presently few Pelicans because the word has got out that there is a feed to be had far out west. This is a shot of a group resting from eating too much. Note a Great Egret trying to fit in!
1DXII 70-200mm f/2.8L II & 2xIII 400mm 1/1250 f11 iso500 -2ev HH Full frame
A bit of S&H, brightness/contrast balance in CC2019 PS no extra sharpening.
I like the story and natural history this image shows.
I find the entire image very flat. The sun was a bit high and this has washed out all those potential beautiful colors in the scene.
I would warm the image up and add some saturation and contrast and boost the shadows a bit..
I would also clone out that brown circle in the water in mid-right.
Gail