rjvb1

I agree with everyone about the uniqueness of this photo (which I'd love to have as a desktop image, btw O:-) ), and disagree with the last poster about the DOF. Increased DOF would only have made the banks in the background more distracting. The image would have gained from a uniform water backdrop, possibly with the bokeh of a mirror tele ... but as it is I can only applaud the author for how he made use of the elements at his disposal!

That must be a wonderful memory, Marina!

It's funny, I just discovered your work, and before even seeing this picture, your photos of the grand apes reminded me of the work of Frans de Waal (who does not just write popularising books). Have you had a chance to meet him, yet?

It's beautiful. There is some tension in the framing for me, I'd probably want to pan the view a bit to the right (but then we don't know if there wasn't something distracting just outside the current framing, so this is not a critique).
I agree about the remarks concerning the colours and definition, though. The red rock face does look a little vague, and there's something quite odd about its reflection, so much more deep and vibrant than the 'original'. I'd very much like to see the unprocessed photo!

Splendid moment/pose, but the animal is not in the optimal position in the cut-out frame, for me. If there's uncluttered blue sky all across the original shot, I'd probably even experiment with some very slight rotation of the bird, for instance to get the beak just a bit more vertical (about 1º clockwise would seem to be enough).