birdseye:kiwi.. i dont shoot raw...i have the original size in my gallery...but a jpeg..yours looks good, although i can't see it full size on the screen.. what did you do with this one exactly..thanks.. how does anyone set the camera to shoot white birds?
Birdseye take a look at this thread I wrote on exposure zones http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/thread/81624.aspx
with that in mind when you meter your scene such as white birds I would use spot metering and meter on the whites and keep them with in the zones. What I mean by that is if you look at the image that I attached to the exposure zones thread just under the grey scale there is some vertical lines and numbers when you look through your view finder you will see a similar thing .look through the view finder and move it about you will see that metering change. When shooting white objects if you can set your meter on a neutral color such as grass then lock that look at the lightest object and it is no more than a plus 4 then it will retain details I would try to expose so whites on birds are a plus 3 on that meter the same goes for blacks at the other end no more than -4 but try for a -3 I hope that makes sense to you.
I will download your image in the gallery and see what I can do
what version of photoshop are you using ? and do you use bridge?
Added note send me one of the images the uploaded ones have been converted to BMP send to my email
In loving memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness
My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php