Elusive (to me) Wood Duck

I spent much of this season trying to come up with some decent images of woodies, which are not real common in our area, all to no avail. Then in the last few days I heard that a couple of wood duck males had moved in with our local mallards on the warm water stream that runs through town. So, today I went and made a bunch of images, only to find out how blooming hard they are to expose properly with the irridescence and the high contrast pure whites against darker feathers.

This image represents quite of bit of time in processing with Capture NX2 to keep from blowing the whites while maintaining some brilliance in the other colors. I think I will put this over in the Avian gallery, but would like some feedback here first. Is the background too distracting? Did I succeed in getting the colors and contrasts without blowing everything off the scale?

I had bunch of fun getting this, and the good thing is now I think they will still be there tomorrow!

The duck is beautiful Lon, details look really nice. The background is very natural looking which I feel is well suited for the image.
Looking at it, the background "may" take some of the pop of color away from 'ol woodie, but I would have to be nit picking to really go there. It's too nice of an image to do that too. I'm learning (mostly the hard way) background can play as much of a role in an image as the main subject. I think you have a wonderful image of a beautiful wood duck.

Wow, this is one of the best wood duck shots I've ever seen, Lon! Incredible detail, perfect composition, and, did I say incredible detail? Very nice.

Gorgious bird. You captured it very nicely: Great color, excellent detail. It is a very natural looking shot even if the background does compete with the foreground.

First off, a magnificent shot of this wood duck. What a beautiful species! There is excellent detail throughout and subtle tonality changes are plainly evident so great work on the capture and post processing.

The three light stems in the bg are distracting IMO. Were this shot mine, I would select them and change the color to match the darker browns of other similar stems, then I'd back off the brightness to reduce their impact further.

I don't frequent the avian forum but I've got a feeling that this shot will get raves with a bit more bg processing. Great shot Lon, glad you got a chance to capture this beauty!

Fantastic capture, Lon. I broke my ankle in the spring trying to get a good shot of one, which I finally did.and I did post it. I really like the naturalness of the background, and yes, they are elusive and very difficuld to catpure. I also finally got a shot of the mother and 5 babies which I may post one day. Way to go. Oh yea, you did a great job with the editing.

Well done, Lon. They are a hard species to capture just right. The bird appears to be swimming up hill.

I agree with Wayne on the three light stems. Otherwise this is an excellent shot with great detail and color. Nice job.

Excellent Shot Lon! you nailed the image and the processing is pretty close to perfect to me. Just a great shot love everything about it.

Thank you all for the encouraging words and insightful suggestions. I have spent some additional time making the tweaks, and might throw it up on the Avian Gallery tomorrow!

Lon, this is a great capture.