Love these little buggers. They are great hunter/fishers and super speedy as they flit from one cypress stump to another. This is a female noted by the duller colors on the wings. The males are much more colorful and brighter.
Anything and everything
Is this a composite: No
D500, 200-500 @ 350mm, f/6.3, 1/1600, ISO 500
50/50 ACR PS
I think this has a lot of potential. The flight position of the bird is nice, wing position is great. Sharpness… very nice on the wings, but sadly, not on the head/eye.
The bigger issue is this is just far too tight in the frame. The bird has nowhere to fly to, and it just feels overly cramped.
A very nice wing position but I wonder if you got anything a second before this one. The change in BG color at the midpoint is a bit distracting. I wonder if the two colors can each be brought closer to the other one. The shadow of the feet is interesting but it pulls my eye more than I prefer.
I concur with @Keith_Bauer about more room.
These guys are so fast, and unlike many other water birds, they give no pre-warning of flight. It’s just one second they’re sitting on a branch, the next in full flight - and then there are the backgrounds…in the swamp area I shoot in, open BG’s are few and far between. I did get two other shots in this sequence but I am not sure you’ll like the BG’s any more than the first, but both of you will enjoy the eye sharpness.
Hi Chris
I really the Heron’s coloring, wing and feet detail. The Nikon D500, does not have a 5 frame pre-buffer or eye tracking, so two thing that may help. After you have taken couple of close-up, check the wind direction, move to a multi focus point setting and open up the frame, giving your self room for the bird to take off. In posting you could try a 16 by 9 frame. This should cut down on some of the background changes and give the bird room to fly.
If only they would check with the photographer before take off.
Peter
I think the top one would work quite well with a pano crop. A little off the top would simplify that area, and maybe even a little low-opacity cloning over the darker areas. Kudos for catching this action!
I sold the D500 and bought a D850, not so much for shooting wildlife as for shooting more landscapes. I also sold the 200-500 and now just use a 28-300 which covers most of my wild life needs. The issue with shooting the Herons where I shoot is I am always in a moving boat…idling most times and drifting others but always moving so in most cases it’s a crap shot. I think I got my best shots using the D810 and the 200-500 but I am just too long in the tooth to hold that beast of a lens. Also, when I’m shooting up there, it’s always in breeding season, so the colorations are generally quite striking. The rest of the time, either the fishermen are barreling in at a zillion miles per hour or the duck hunters are shooting and they’re not all that careful about the direction.
I did do a low opacity clone on top…maybe more. 
