The Arrival

I was out early yesterday morning at the local nature area and found that the rut was in full swing with the black-tailed deer. I had found 2 small/medium bucks together and not paying much attention to each other so I moved a little further on and found a group of does and fawns feeding. Soon the 2 bucks came over and the larger buck simply stared hard at the smaller one who turned around and left. The larger buck then surveyed the does and picked one to follow. After a while she peed for him and he investigated and I got a nice series of lip-curl photos. Apparently she wasn't ready to breed so he moved off to some other deer. Not long after, this big boy arrived and did it ever change the dynamics. The first buck sort of casually walked off to a small hill and stayed there and just watched what was going on. Dominance in action. I did quite a bit (for me) of small changes to this photo. I probably wiggled most of the sliders in LR one way of the other; kind of feeling my way. So I'd really appreciate comments as to whether this still looks real or if I went too far in one direction or the other.

Tech Info

Canon EOS 60D with EF 70-200mm f/4L with 1.4 TC = 280mm
1/320th at f/5.6 and ISO 1000
tripod