Magnificent capture with such clarity, detail and colours. You are such a marvelous photographer Garrett, love your wildlife shots.

I always knew those FL birds seem unusual and fun! Love the details and colors. I'm gonna guess a Purple Swamphen, since I viewed some FL photo galleries then read that some escapees flourished in the '90s.

It could be almost anything if Ft. Lauderdale is anything like it was back in the 60's for Spring Vacation. Connie Francis could probably tell us. Until then I will go with the Purple Swamphen as E~ suggested.
Whatever it is you captured it in your usual excellent style.

TicK

(Viewed Full Screen)

Stunning looking photo and the colours you captured in this bird are superb.What a beautiful colour this bird as and the light in this shot is a 100%.Love that red head gear as well.

I dont know what it is Garret and I am not even going to venture a guess. But it is very pretty and you did a great job of getting all of her colors.

Great capture, Garrett. The colour and details are fantastic.Whatever that is it looks 95% Purple Gallinule and 5% ??????. I've seached all morning and can't figure it out.

Whatever it is Garrett - it is a stunning photo of it. Great capture. I was lucky enough to get this one in the voting booth - You got a "10"

Beautiful Garrett. It's a ten in my book as well.

Vic

Think Elizabeth is correct.

See ... here.


Quoting from the above linked page;

"On a recent birding expedition here in Florida, I had the unique opportunity to compare Purple Gallinules side by side with the recently introduced Purple Swamphen. In direct comparison to the Swamphen (originally from Africa), the native Purple Gallinule shows the unique "candy corn" bi-colored beak and blue bill shield (above the beak) in adult plumage. The birds are both considerably smaller and slighter than the larger Swamphens as well.

Note also the bright yellow legs on the adult Purple Gallinule adult above. In comparison the superficially similar Purple Swamphen adult (below) has a stout pinkish bill with a darker base and red "bill-shield" on the forehead, and fleshy pink legs. Unfortunately, I was never able to get the two in the same image even though I was able to observe both from the same location at the same time. If I had, the extreme difference in size would be extremely apparent!

Various sources list the birds' respective length and weight as follows:

Species Length Weight

P. Gallinule 36 cm 208 - 288 grams

P. Swamphen 46 cm 460 - 860 grams"

That said..


Beautiful shot, Garrett.


Some creative food for thought..

I am viewing your image on a CRT monitor. Which, could explain what is to follow and to the point ... the body of the bird being somewhat dark to my eyes. So..

Employing Phil's; aka philcUK tutorial, namely; "Faking the HDR thing..." ... ended up with this result:

"Not a Purple Gallinule, I think?" - Rework.

Used the default settings for the Shadow/Highlight adjustments for the most part (which could be easily adjusted themselves, so ... might appear somewhat lighter now and then what I personally would have done for a final presentation).

And then, that of the 'Find Dark and Light Colors' (or, 'Auto Color') - Curves adjustment. Knocked back to 75%.

And done.


The particular Curves adjustment used was performed, as to my eye ... the day looked slightly overcast. Tried to keep that aspect of lighting.

That said..


Hope you don't mind that I downloaded and played around with your photo here. Always fun for me to have a quality image to mess about with and in turn, and hopefully ... impart some stuff back to the artist.

That said..


Thank you for sharing this one with us. :o)

It's a great capture of this wading bird is what it is. Nice details and colours in your photo.

We have native swamphens here and this looks very similar, a bit different adorment around the head from this African version though (if indeed that is what this is).