Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea) portrait

Another image from my visit to Doñana National Park. The birds were really cooperative this spring. This guy was photographed from a car with three avid friends-photographers at just a few meters. It is almost full frame, just a little crop for a better composition, and the bird posed for about 15 minutes, catching crayfishes. ufortunately the angle was not very good and some OOF green stuff in the foreground affect the quality of this image but, hey is a nice portrait considering that I do no live in Florida and the birds here are not so cooperative:D

Nikon D2X AFS Nikkor 300VR+1,4XTC, handheld from car (sorry, I am at the office now and do not have more data :o)

Nice head and neck detail Juan! I really like the curved neck. I notice the green in the FG but its ok for me. What bothers me though, is the horizontal line across the upper edge of the frame. Is it an OOF fence rail? Beautiful bird!

Dan Brown,
Sacramento

Nice looking bird with great eye contact,colors and composition,I Iike it a lot!