Usually those birds are much too scittish, to get a frame filling image of a wild one.
I was able to approach very close to it (with my feet sticking in the mud...) so I did not have to crop the image.
I made some pictures and I like those most, where the bird stretches its wing even if the head angle is not perfect on those. I was not able to move to a better position without scaring the bird away, so I have those green stripes in the lower right corner. I am too sad about all those problems....:(
Mark III / Canon 500
1/ 400 sec. / f 5.6 / ISO 1000
I like the sharpness, the green strips, and the head angle; yoou are too harsh a critic. Love the raised foot too.
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I love it Rosl, the BG is great - I wouldn't have noticed the stripes if you hadn't mentioned them - I don't think they are an issue. I would just clean up the pale dots to the left of the wing
Don't be so sad...this is a fantastic image!! I would personally crop a bit from the top, but otherwise very, very nice :-) (...and I like the green strips too)
I believe your efforts have paid off. The patterns in the background gives a nice effect here. And I see that you have missed to convert the image to sRGB. No profile attached. The colours look a bit mute, compared to what I see this in PS with Adobe RGB profile.