Wildlife Photography at Kirby Storter Roadside Park

On my last photo tour I explored the parks and wildlife along US 41 in Florida. US 41 borders Big Cypress National Preserve to the North and Everglades National Park to the South. Its abundant wildlife is a feast for every visitor, not just for nature and wildlife photographer. One of my last stops in the area was Kirby Storter Roadside Park. The park consists of a 1/4 mile boardwalk that first winds through saw grass before quickly emerging into a beautiful cypress swamp. The atmosphere is quite magical when one enters the cypress swamp; trees are overgrown and birds are peeping, egret, wood stork, heron and ibis are immediately noticeable. The boardwalk ends at a gator hole where I made out an American Alligator that unfortunately was to far away for a frame filling capture. On my way back out of this oasis I stumbled upon a mature White Ibis that was perching on a tree branch. This was Bird Photography made easy since the ibis was not disturbed by camera and my close distance. I tried various compositions to eliminate any distracting smaller branches of the tree and to get the best possible composition and image. Once I found my Photography Composition I manually focused on the blue eye of the bird to obtain the maximum detail and color of it. Camera aperture was set to f/4 resulting in an exposure time of 1/160 second. During post processing I removed dust spots, minimally adjusted contrast, lighting and color saturation before sharpening.