Art of preening

Graceful feather preening of a Mute Swan bathed in afternoon side rear lighting. While meandering through the park by La Praille pond in Grangettes Nature Reserve (Switzerland), the photographer came across this lone swan totally immersed in a thorough preening session. The side rear lighting was quite useful to reveal the texture of the feathers but it was so strong that it required manual exposure to delimit the dynamic range of the camera.