Yet Another Spoonbill in Flight

Hello. I went out shooting birds today trying to keep in mind what I've learned here about taking BIF images over the last month or so. . For example: the ideal wing positions (basically full up or down), position of the bird (facing forward), angle from horizon`( aprox up to 20degrees or full overhead) , eye contact, etc.,and I think I was fairly successful in this image. I used USM, though it didn't seem to need much. The image was close to full frame (maybe 80%). I have two problems that I notice right off the bat): the top part of the neck seems overexposed, if not totally blown 2) the background seems a little busy. I attempted fix the background, not shown here, by creating a top layer from the background, masking the bird, deleting the background on the top layer, removing the mask, feathering the bird, blurring the bottom layer, then flattening the image. It just didn't look right, like the background didn't go with the bird image, or if I'd gone that far I could have stuck in any background and no one would be the wiser (except you guys of course). So what should be done with the background in this image if anything? Is what I have described dealing with it correct? And what about the blown out whites of the neck? And I'm sure there are other problems I haven't noticed. Please point them out if you would. I would appreciate it.~
Sony A-700 Tamron 200-500mm@500mm 1/1600 sec F6.3 ISO200 Hand held 10:30AM 7-19-08 Brazoria NWR
~onlybill

Wing position, details and angle look very good. The neck is not overexposed but it looks somewhat gray, maybe from highlight recovery. I used the reduce noise tool to blur the BG some more since I agree it is a bit distracting.