Great heron Birdie! I like the #2 flight capture and really love the feather details in #3. I can't wait to get to the beach myself one of these days.

Last two for me.

Tony

Color off a touch in the first? I love the second and third Roberta

Morris

Beautiful job, Birdie. I didn't see the original of the first shot but your re-work looks good to me and the inclusion of the grass give a great anchor point to the image
#3 is a beauty
Now, if you want to take down the bird here is very easy way with CS6.
Use the patch tool in content-aware mode. Make a rough selection of the bird and drag it up until PS fill the space of the bird with the sky. Now you have an image w/o the bird. Save this image with a different name as the base for next step and close it.
Open the original photo and the one you just saved w/o the bird. Put the images next to each other (Windows---> Arrange-->2-up vertical) Make a selection of the bird and with the moving tool position it on the other image to your taste.
You should get something like this. Actually better than this one. I just did a quick re-do just to show the results.

Socrate

#2 is killa Birdie!

Hai

A good set- all of them, Birdie.
The second image though, is especially good IMO, and having some sky, water and beach making up the OOF background is muy perfecto.
Charlie

great shots. I like how you included the background/surrounding in these shots!

Great shots, Birdie. I agree with Karl, as always. #1 would be awesome if the reddish was a bit closer to the beach/grasses, but it seems a stretch here. #3 is flat out awesome - love it!

Jim

Thanks so much Jim ! Really appreciate it.



These are superb Birdie. Composition I guess is purely subjective as in #1 I would have discarded the grass as his eyes are focussed completely out of the grass. But either way these are superb. I wish some day I can come close


Thank you so very much. Agree that it is subjective, but always like what you all have to say as all your shots are so nice. Love getting input from you all. I was sitting in the water . For whatever reason , if I was in the water he let me get a bit closer .



Nice set you have here....I like both flight shots, naturally.


Glad you like them. Thanks for looking in .

great set Roberta.. #2 and #3 are my favorites


Greatly appreciated Kenny, thank you!



Congrats Birdie ... terrific images of a usually skittish bird with great detail.


Thank you Thomas ! This one was very skittish. When I actually got in the water and sat down , he let me get a bit closer. If I was on the beach and he saw me , he was gone in heartbeat.

Very nicely done, Birdie.
#3 is very beautiful but the winner for me is #2.
What a great flight by image with this BG.
Chris


Thanks so much Chris, much appreciated.

2 and 3 are very nice Birdie. 1 is tough... I also like the grass in the shot, but Karl nailed it - the burd is too high in the frame. Maybe cropping a fair amount off the left to make it a vertical crop would work. OR - crop to landscape and loose the grass.

Just my thoughts ~ Ron


Always appreciate your thoughts Ron ! I was sitting /laying in the sand and hear his squawking and really just looked up and shot. I will work on this one



Gotta go with number two but it wasn't an easy decision!

Great work.

Jim

Thank you so very much Jim !

These guys look stunning

Howard

I love all these photos. I love the detail on number 3, the sense of movement on number 2, and the very unusual layout or framing of the first photo. To me, the distance between the foreground grasses and the flying bird suggests that the bird is truly a creature of the skies. I also like the way it appears to be heading right for the grasses.

Lynn