Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, Washingon, USA
This has been one of my favorites. This is a full frame shot, he/she was so close to me. I never realized until recently that he/she has a crack/hole in the beak.
Any comments appreciated.
Is this a composite: No
Canon 7D, EF 300mm, f/2.8 + 1.4, 1/500 sec @ f/4.5, ISO 400.
Wow! That is close! Must have been a wonderful experience! This could make a really nice fine art image!
A stunning view of this bird, with wonderful lighting and feather detail!
Great detail. One of my favorite birds.
A very nice portrait and the hole in the bird’s beak is the nostril which is caked with mud and or salt. Eye position is in the perfect spot and the backlighting reveals some nice colors and patterns in the beak. Awesome…Jim
Hi David, very nice close up. I like where you positioned the eye in the frame. The worn beak shows a lot of use and adds interest to me. A pleasing background. Well done.
Thanks everyone for the nice comments. It’s one of my favorite images.
Well done closeup image. I like the crop and detail.
Hi David, again! I just wanted to show you what I meant by a fine art photo, hope you don’t mind!..
Hi Vanessa, I do like that a lot. It looks like you used the fine art choice in NIK Silver EFX? Either way, it looks great. I should try this and see what it looks like printed.
Yeah, I did use fine art but I also did some adjustments just to make the feather details come out more, I’m not really good at knowing exactly what I’m doing, I just tweak it until it looks good to my eyes anyway! 
. Oh! And I think it would look awesome printed!
Just a note, but the “crack” in the beak is the nostril, and not just a hole in the beak.
