Great Egret

Canon 40D, 300 2.8+2x conv, ISO 640, f8, 1/800

Usually, straight on images of birds don't do much for me, but in this case I think it works.

The symmetry is nice and the background colors are pleasant.

The whole thing could be a bit brighter for my tastes, and I'm wondering if you had to do some work to recover some of the highlights as they look a little grey.

Great posture and presence - eye contact is always a winner! Perhaps the whites could be slightly lighter - sharpness on the head is excellent!

Great incoming pose and BG. I agree regarding making the whites lighter and crop it more as a pano.

Impressive coming at you pose with a sweet BKGR. Agree with Axel on a PANO crop, most or all of it off the bottom.

The bird is turned fractionally to your left but still, the head on look is imposing. Too bad about the dirty neck. All in all, very well done.

Thx guys for the comments. Your advice is appreciated. Jim, the histogram on the original indicates no clipping but I applied the burn tool to get some detail on my first post. You are right the grey is noticeable.

Here's a repost with some of the changes suggested. Better?

Bird is brighter but so is BKGR. Try Linear Burn for restoring detail in the whites. There is a tutorial in Educational Resources (99% sure...)