magnifique capture ...

What a wonderful composition Keith.

Superbe

klasse keith

a great capture, love the rippled water

... Walkers on the beach ... :-)))

Very sharp for a cropped image at 286 mm!

It's a very good lens Berny!

OH HOW WONDERFUL, Keith!!! What a CUTIE PIE of a bird!! How lucky to see this rare shore bird. You got such a nice shot. And you know, there is no flaw in cropping a picture, imo...in fact, I usually make sure there is room for me to crop a picture. And of course, my macros are usually cropped up to or almost to my very tightest crop possible (1024 x dimension). And when it comes to pictures like this, it's so GRAND that you had the ability to crop in for this perfect result! Marvelous!!

Thanks for the wonderful comments on my dahlia, I'm glad you liked it! :) I will hopefully be posting lots of pictures like that...in some ways it seems so "boring" to post flower faces cropped to a square, but the whole point is to share the gobsmacking beauty of these blossoms and these gardens kind of required me to take pictures this way because of the inability in most cases to create a lovely bokeh background composition. It's very nice to get such kind remarks though and these flowers really do deserve the attention! :)

Re: commenting...yeah, you know I used to do what you did...I'd comment on others' photos even though they didn't reciprocate. But the thing is, there are just too many people with too many pictures and you have to draw the line somewhere. So I drew it: you leave a comment and I'll return the favor...and the thing is, there are STILL too many contacts to visit and the list just grows. It seems a little unfair to use this tactic, but in the end, if people may not even SEE my comment, wouldn't my time be better spent leaving a comment where it will be seen and appreciated? We gotta do what makes the best sense! :)

What a super sharp photo - I love the Curlews but we only see them in the middle of the year on the moors. I thank you for your friendly and often helpful comments and make a note to self to follow your lead.

Ein großartiger Schuss, Keith! Es ist nicht so einfach, bei so dichtem Seegras im Vordergrund, die Schärfe auf den Vogel zu fixieren. Aber es ist dir gelungen!

Great light onto this curlew...
Funny, we have nearly the same word for this particular spring bird : "courlis" which nests in the wild meadows in Alsace...on the very ground.

It's a beautiful shot, Keith!

Beautiful capture

Thanks for all your comments and stars folks...................always appreciated :-)