Singing Spoonbill Duet Takes Rookery by Storm!

Recently our Photo Club took a trip to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm’s Rookery to check out the birds. What a riot, as usual. I had never gone quite this early so the birds were doing a lot of mating and nest building, but not a lot of babies yet. It was total craziness and the Roseate Spoonbills were in all their splendor. I had never had a chance to see this many at one time and they were practically tame! They would get so close you could hardly focus your camera. Needless to say, it was a great time. These two birds were either doing mating clacking song, or totally entertaining the photographers. I was less than 5 feet from them and they were there all morning.

This image was mainly just sharpened up a bit and the basic tonal correction was done in Lightroom. In Photoshop Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Clarity using John Barclay basic settings preset (Micro Contrast 0.36, Low Contrast 0.20, Medium Contrast -0.11, and High Contrast -0.23) was applied. On a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) Topaz Glow was applied using my SJ Mysterious II Water preset (Primary Glow:  Glow Type Dark, Glow Strength 0.30, Effect Sharpness 0.63, Electrify 0.14, Simplify Details 0.17, Edge Color 0.28, Detail Strength -0.06, Detail Size 0.20, Brightness -0.56, Contrast 0.44, Saturation 0.00, Line Rotation 0.00, and Glow Spread 0.00; Secondary Glow:  Glow Type Light, Glow Strength 0.00, Effect Sharpness 0.22, Electrify 0.03, Simplify Details 0.00, Brightness 0.45, and Contrast 0.64; Color Overall – all set to 0; Red RedSat 0.34; Orange Sat 0.33; Yellow Sat 0.03 and Lightness -0.29; Blue Sat 0.42 and Lightness -0.43; and Magenta Sat 0.75 and Lightness -0.35) set to Strength 64% and Overlay blend mode in the plug-in. A clean up layer was placed on top to clone out a few distracting bush edges and that was it. This was a really fun image to take!…..Digital Lady Syd