Good looking bird, sharp, well exposed.
The bright patch in the background, and stump are a bit distracting. If possible, you might have been well served to move to your right to avoid those problem areas.
A bit more room below if you have it, to allow for the virtual 'feet'.
Be sure to include your tech details, camera, lens, settings and post processing so we can better understand the image making/processing used here.
Ditto Randy's excellent critique. By "virtual feet" he means that it is almost always best to leave room plus a border for a bird's feet even though we cannot see them (our view here obscured by the water). Moving to your right here would have also separated the big log from the bird. I would suggested eliminating the smaller dark branch--best done with a Quick Mask.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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Good advice above. Nice exposure and bird. The biggest distraction for me is the bright patch in the water behind the heron. You also might try cloning out the white dots in the lower left.
Peter, If you take our suggestions with an open mind, you will be able to create some better images. It is not the bird; it is the guy pressing the shutter-button. That's you :)
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Don't. Get discouraged about it. We have all taken a lot of images that aren't perfect. The secret is to keep after it,learn from the mistakes you make and grow!
If the herons are tame enough, they are great to practice on, big and slow!