At this point I don't have the equipment or the technique for some of the fantastic birds in flight shots that I've seen on the forum, so this is my alternative.

I got up at dark-thirty and drove a couple of hours to this place. Got set up just before sunrise. Shot a lot, but this early one was one of my favorites.

This is 'the flock'. The Ranger was estimating about 200,000 of them: Snow Geese. They were being 'thinned out' by 70-80 bald eagles that would occasionally dive in to find the slowest or the weakest of the bunch. Later in the day, driving around, I found the 'feasting table' for the eagles, a bare spot in the marsh about a mile away where there were a 20 or so adults and juveniles planning their next meal. Of course, that spot was about 1/4 - 1/2 mile inside the marsh so photos were not good with my short lenses.

"Blast off" shots like this are really fun. The only thing I might do is boost the color temp (maybe around 6500) to get some more out of the sunrise.

Must have been quite an event to see in person.

I'd have to play with it to see, but off the top of my head . . .

In Lightroom, I would boost the color temp to about 6500K and then increase the blue saturation. If that didn't give me the result I want, I would go to PS and work the blue and red/orange separately either on layers or using select color range. From there, I'd just have to play.

Don't get me wrong, it is really nice with the pastel colors just as it is.

OK, I did a quick and dirty (which means sloppy), and I probably overdid it just to see if this is on the track of your suggested improvement.

That is more like what I had in mind. I'm not on my calibrated machine, but it looks a little pink rater than red/orange, but that is definitely on the path I would have taken.

Sorry to butt in, Preston & Jim. But, the second version looks much better to me too. Good job!

Tucson Jim

Thanks for the feedback TJ. I'll have to put a bit more time into it to get the colors right. (I emailed a copy to my sister back East, and she said it gave her a headache to look at Just what a Photographer loves to hear, making an impact on the viewer.

LOL, I dropped of some prints the other day and the woman started to cry.

On one hand, I felt good that they had such an impact, but on the other I felt a little bad too.