Heron best in b&w?

[Mad Aussie]

I'm still torn!

[Marko]

The colour pops harder partly because of better contrast.
Play with the overall contrast and local contrasts, and the BW will sing much louder imo, to the point where the image will be stronger in BW.
Right now the colour is better processed imo.

[Doug L]

Thanks, MA and Marko,

I've been reading about converting colour to b&w digitally. It's going to take a better program than Elements2 and on the conversion learning curve I'm starting near the bottom. Even so, I'm looking forward to doing more b&w images in the future - will have another go at the heron once I become a bit more adept. Thanks for the comments and encouragement.