catch me if you can

[stardelta]

This swan was being chased of our local bird lake, by another protective swan.
the female on the lake is in season again, they caught me off guard as regards the shot, I know its not the best but thought I would share for c&c.
All I have done is a crop and colour adjustment, what are you thoughts.

[ggt]

It's a great shot of the bird, but I'm wondering if you could change the color of the background a bit --add some blue or lavender so the swan really is differentiated from the background? It seems his far wing is getting lost a bit. Could be my eyes or monitor, but I think I'd like to see a wee bit of contrast here.

I LOVE the detail on the "front" wing. The way the light is showing thru showing the layers of wings is very cool!

[stardelta]

Thankyou gretchen for your comments, I may have gone a bit too far with the adjustments to the sky, her is theimage closer to the original shot, I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Regards
Glenn.

[HMW12]

I would suggest a bit of noise reduction as well which might also require some additional sharpening. What program are you using to do the adjustment? While I think the adjustment in the first photo may have gone abit too far, the second one seems a bit too dark.

[ggt]

Hey Glen, I like the bluer background in the second and the whiter bird in the first. Noise reduction is a good idea. Wondering if you can combine the two with my new toy called "opacity" (layers technique Mike Buckley described somewhere around here) or mask off the bird and just change the background? The wonderful detail of the light thru the closer wing is lost in the 2nd.

I know, there is just no pleasing the critiques! LOL