Hi All,
Thanks very much for all the comments and suggestions. Here are some words to go with the photo.
I'm travelling and can't edit from the original right now, but I can say that i did not add post capture vignetting, and I tried to stay close to the original colors. I did shift shadows down a bit toward black point after boosting contrast a bit.
The original Raw file had somewhat less intense separation between shadows and highlights, and a bit less saturation, but the hue and broad luminosity range was because of the angle of light that I caught quite intentionally from an angle that would hopefully bring out some drama. The opposite shore was in shadow already and the feathers and tops of wavelets were lit up much brighter than the rest.
One aspect that I wanted to see were the muscular ripples on the back which often get blown out in white highlights when the sun is higher off the water. Other than the light to dark contrast combined with the geometric composition, I also picked this frame because of the just before landing feeling I empathized with from the bird's posture and general demeanor at the moment of dipping his toes in the water. The cross breeze and ruffled feathers are different, in hopefully an interesting way, compared to what is usually presented in birding pictures.
I almost didn't post it since I'm flying out of SFO and can't help but think about the unsuccesful landing a little while back.