Could I please get an opinion on this? I did some PP and cropped it better than in the past. Thanks.

Tom

I'd like to see the bird's face a little brighter - but please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I agree it would be nice to see more of his interesting face. I do like the backlit effect on his chest feathers - very nice!

Marcy

Excellent. The feedback over the past weeks has been a good education for me. Thanks!

Tom.

Great shot, nicely framed. The EXIF data doesn't show if its a RAW file. If it is, and you have the program Photomatix Pro for doing HDR work, you can pull it in as a single image and bring up a subtle increase in feather detail. Most think HDR work is about creating grunge interpretations, not so. You can improve regular images (RAW) keeping them "real".

Bert

I like the composition and the heron's pose. A little sharper would be more appealing to me. Are you trying for a moody sunset image? If you're not sold on a dark moody look, a shadows adjustment would open up the bird, loosing much of the darkness without loosing all the mood. Also a slight middle tone dodge on the heron face might add a little interest. I can post an example to illustrate if you'd like.

An easy way to brighten the bird is to make a copy of the red channel, invert and blur it, and copy it to a new layer above the bird. Then change the blend mode of the new layer to overlay. Otherwise, the crop and backlighting looks nice.

Cropping is pretty good. If you could, I'd put just a bit more headroom at the top. The GBH is well-positioned in the frame.
Lighting was not optimal, but, as AuntiPode illustrated, the image can be improved in PS.
Here is a LR adjusted version with shadow recovery, slight curves work, adjustment of luminosity and saturation of blues, oranges and yellows, and a bit of added sharpening.

BTW, the back-lit feathers are a nice touch. Again, this might be a case for a bit of fill flash.

Scott