I can't bare it any longer...
Kev,
I don't think there is a lot that needed doing to the files personally, but in the interest of learning maybe this will help. All done in PS but using the curves along with the adjustment brush in LR you could do something very similar.
For this, I've just selected the birds themselves and gone waaaay over the top - this is not meant to be accurate, just a demonstration!!!
If you want to get more localised contrast within the image you want to open up a curves layer. There is the line that goes in a diagonal from top right to bottom left. To add contrast drag the line downwards around the dark tones (the left side of the histogram) and pull it up on the right side where the lighter tones are.
This did this to your shot
The blacks are much darker, and the midtones around the Grebes backside are lighter.
As an alternative, and again just for demonstration, if you were to do a 'reverse S' with the curve -
The contrast would lessen like this -
Using the curves with the mask it generates allows you to target specific areas.
regarding the ponts on the curve to move, it varies from shot to shot. A good way of checking where to target is to open up the curves box and click on the hand icon within the box. As you go over your shot the cursor changes to a pipette and as you move around the image look at the diagonal line in the curves box and it'll move to represent the tone you're hovering over with your cursor. You can then use that as a basis. A bit of trial and error at the start.
Anyway, like I said, I don't think this is the right approach here, if anything I'd use an adjustment layer called 'selective colour' in photoshop. This allows some nice subtle tweaks. If you have PS, open up the selective colour layer (bottom one of all the adjustment layers got from the half shaded circle at the bottom of the layers panel). First select red from the drop down box, and reduce the cyan slider by quite a bit. This will boost the red eye nicely. Then I went to 'blacks' in the drop down box and slightly boosted the black slider to darken the blacks in the shot. Very subtle and only really noticeable side by side
Hope that helps a little - any questions give me a shout
Mike