These are two of three green Heron chicks from last spring who were practicing “fishing.” The one in the back seems more active but the chick in the foreground was substantially larger, so I suspect he was the more successful hunter. They are about three weeks from totally fledging the nest which is buried deep in the reeds behind them.
This was shot up in the Econfina Water Management area, NW Florida
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Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
This was shot on my first outing with my D500 couple to a Nikon 200-500 @ 200mm, f/7.1, ISO 320, 1/1200.
I used several luminosity masks to bump up the darks and lights contrast between their environment and them and to bump up the colors a tad. My only concern is in using masking tools I’m not yet proficient with, are the colors too saturated?
Nice look at this behavior. The birds themselves are fairly well exposed but the perch; the large log on the left-hand side of the frame, is way too bright and distracts. I think if you cut the highlights down and darkened the log the bit without making the whites too gray, you’ll be on the right track.
I was having a hard time not getting the brights too gray…back to the drawing board 
Hi Chris, I like the juxtaposition of the two chicks you captured here. Makes for an interesting image. I think the colors on the chicks are okay but agree with toning down the highlights both on the birds and the log.
T
his is a rework of the image. Rather than try to narrow down a lights mask, I instead did a select by color range on the lights of the log and the overly green areas to tone them down. The downy feathers on the fronts of the herons are really naturally quite bright so I felt it was necessary to let nature prevail and keep them true to nature.
