Black-crowned Night-Heron Juvenile

[Raymond Lee]

Jackie Parker Park, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Canon EOS 7D | Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS + Kenko 1.4x Teleplus PRO 300 DGX + Canon Extender EF 1.4x II.
Manual mode, 1/800 sec., f/7.1, ISO 640; handheld.

This image was captured this morning. The sunlight was diffused by the haze in the air from the wild fire in the north. This juvenile BCNH flew in and gave me 5 minutes worth of photography before another person doing his morning walk flushed this Heron away.

The image had very little editing: Cropped out about 5% of the total area. I did not like two leaves around the existing leaves at the bottom right hand corner, so I cloned them out. The usual sharpening for the final output.

All C&Cs are welcome!

Thanks,
Raymond

[Dave Spates]

I like the side view of the Heron, nice and sharp and lighting is right on point, I'd crop the image vertical in half so the leaves in front of the heron are not in the picture.

[Marina Scarr]

Nice composition and the juvie works well against the green vegetation. The clump of vegetation on the left competes a little with your subject but your bird has a nice pose.