I found it very hard to "judge" all those excellent entries. The challenge photo was especially bad in terms of colors/white balance and I had cropped the tail inadvertently. I had previously tried to "rescue" it but changing white balance or hue/saturation, etc. only resulted in a worse image. So I think all the entries are huge winners in comparison with my efforts. Yet I had to choose among the many excellent entries, and as the rules say, "
As we all know, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder " which makes me a little less uncomfortable doing the judging
Winner:
@Hendrik (2nd version because it has even less noise than entry #1). I liked the composition and the crop (especially that in the original the tail was cropped anyway) and I also liked the colors quite a bit.
1st runner up:
@Rob Rider's 2nd entry.
2n runner up:
@Fred S's only entry.
Thanks again for all the contributors and over to you
@Hendrik.