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Have and Have Not (68)
dsidwell Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 175 W: 6 N: 181] (680)
The Snowy Egret (Egretta thula).

The closest has an anchovy in its mouth. Yum!

Inspired by so many great bird photographers here on TN, I thought I'd better get myself up to par and try more wildlife photography, so when I saw these egrets stealing anchovies from the sport fisher boats, I sneaked up and captured a few on camera.

The snowy egret's head, as you can see, has lovely feathers. So lovely are the feathers that in the 19th century, the birds were hunted to procure their feathers for fashionable hats. They became very endangered. Luckily, the hats went out of fashion, and the birds have made a comeback.

In addition to anchovies, they eat frogs and other small animals, usually water-based.
Altered Image #1

dsidwell Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Note Writer [C: 175 W: 6 N: 181] (680)
Clone & Blur
Edited by:slrnovice2 Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 331 W: 31 N: 344] (1197)
Hi David,
As you can see I cloned out the lines (using the clone tool setting of 30 hardness and varying radius). I could see you've already used NeatImage or similar software on the BG but the foreground bird was still a bit noisy. You could deal with this by getting the full version of NI which allows varying degrees of noise reduction on different parts of the image or you can do what I've done:
Set the blur tool at 1% hardness and at the top of the page look for the brush settings. I set the brush at 10% opacity and used it all over the bird. I then set it at 100% opacity and 100% hardness and a small radius to go around the edges of the bird.

I hope you like it :)

PS Looking at it now that it is uploaded I'd suggest leaving out the blur around the face of the Egret and around the fish, it just softens the image too much around those crucial areas and spoils the great sharpness you've achieved there. Confine it to the plumage on the neck and body.