Reddish Egret pointing the way.......

[Eric Diller]

Reddish Egret in a strange pose I thought.

Early morning with a nice little wind!!

Nikon D300
Nikkor 200-400mm F4, ED,IF, VR lens with a 1.4X t.c.
ISO 400
Shutter 1/1250
Aperture F6.3
Manual Mode
Hand held from the truck

Everyone went that way...can't you see I am cleaning myself!!

[Tony Whitehead]

Interesting preening pose and good light angle, Eric. Image looks nice and sharp but a little flat and I would try boosting the contrast a bit.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Eric, yes, the pose is definitely unique. I like that the head and eye are visible and at a nice plane w.r.t the camera. Light and exposure look very good. Problem is that the bird is too close to the BG.

[Arthur Morris]

Cool pose. Super that the head is parallel to the imaging sensor as is recommended for images of preening birds. Kastubh nailed the major problem. Best here would have been open water with no BKGR grasses or reeds.... IAC, you did as well as you could have.

[Doug Brown]

Like that preening pose! Agree with Tony about a slight contrast boost. Clean BGs are nice to be sure, but sometimes you take what you can get. :)