Some time with a Least Sandpiper

Outstanding shots, Scott, and I enjoyed your narrative of the stalk.

Very nice!

.. you have inspired me to fix one of mine as well.. for some reason I let RSE talk me into a very "green" white balance ...

As I said to CDS in a PM... "Trust me, the originals looked like crap in comparison. They were less warm and greener, dimmer, less contrast, and fairly improper sharpening. When I saw them in work this morning I felt like a total noob and several levels below the rank amateur rating that I've managed to attain so far."

And - since I ain't too bright sometimes - I deleted the originals off my PC and my web server...

Scott,
That's OK. What matters is the final result is realy good.
But do you think the first processing work was influenced by RSE conversion?
I tried RSE for a while and got some greenich results sometimes, when CS2 ACR (forgot the version) got out I stopped using RSE. The colors and ease of use of the CS2 ACR is just much better for me.

I use C1. One of these days I'll try RSE again. But the problem was that I had left the camera in a Custom White Balance from a shoot a week before. To correct it I clicked C1's Magic Wand thingee. Since I was fairly exhausted - 12 hours of shooting and driving that day - I didn't pay much attention to it, and it didn't do a very good job of matching the calors that I remembered. Go figure.

Once I was rested the problems were pretty clear...

Nice captures Scottes. You can really see how well they little birds can blend into their surroundings.