Eastern reef egret

[greg cowle]

Dark morph of the eastern reef egret, head back in hunting pose. Brown plumage indicates an immature bird, will go a dark grey as it grows.
Palm Cove, 400mm, 1/3200, f7.1, ISO1000.

[dankearl]

Silky BG... Bird and pose look good, never seen now so hard to comment
on color, etc..
Nice raise foot.

[Mike Poole]

I like the pose and it's interesting to see them on the rocks like this. Perfect angle in relation to the camera. maybe just sharpen the head a little more - nothing drastic but a little more will help

Mike

[Randy Stout]

Greg:

Dynamic pose, like the rocks.
Agree with Mike about sharpening the head.
I might consider a slight trim down form the top, perhaps 10% or so. Personal taste really.

Randy

[John Mack]

Never heard of this bird. The raised foot is nice. Really like the background as well.

[greg cowle]

Thanks all for the comments. I will say when I saw this I had no idea what it was, but it was in a nice photographic position. Spent some time with Morecombe's to identify it, you may be able to see that compared with most long-necked herons/egrets it has short and thick legs, so less of the elegant posture of the usual herons/egrets. If it was a light morph I probably would have mistaken it for an intermediate egret.
JPEG could be shaper I agree, I just do a default export from LR without additional sharpening after downsizing.