The angle in the frame and wing spread is nice, with good detail in the lighted areas. the shadows however tend to undermine the image The shadow areas on the far wing can be brought up a bit, but I don't hold a lot of hope for the near wing shadow areas. The focus on the body is soft relative to the wings.
From a comp. standpoint, a bit more top, bottom and left, less to the right.
This is a tough situation to make it work. However, every shot helps you get better, so when the perfect light is there, you are ready to capture it.
I took almost this exact same shot last weekend locally, but it too was undermined by the dark shadows.
I agree 100% with Randy on this one. For me the dark shadows on the wings are the most distracting. Also I would remove the 3 dust spots behind the bird, and de-sat the sky a bit.
Randy wrote and excelent critic that I subscribe. The only way to get good images is with practice and this one helps to do that. The same bird, with the same pose and eye contact under better light conditions would be killer but the shadows are really strong, too much for a saving them in photoshop. The composition is a bit tight in my opinion. Keep them coming :-)
grey heron in flight
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