Wetland Sentries

I was driving into Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Florida last February when some pretty serious weather started rolling in. In fact, the radio was announcing that Titusville and the eastern coastline was under a tornado watch just as I looked up at the sky and spotted these two Great Egrets standing guard over the surrounding wetlands. Well, they probably just chose a great perch on which to take a break from hunting, but it looked like they were sentries posted against the oncoming storm, and it certainly prompted me to pull over and work on some compositions!

This is nearly full-frame, with only a minor crop from the right. I also cloned out one branch coming from the smaller dead tree on the right that was just too distracting the way it jutted toward the right frame of the picture.

After posting, I noticed one of my cursed oil spots from my D600's shutter is showing in the bottom left.

Anyway, would love to know if you think this works (and yes, I guess you know where Jenaya gets her penchant for "birds in their environment" type shots).

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 200-400mm f/4 IF-ED VR @ 270mm
ISO 640
1/4000sec @ f/4.5 (I was expecting a different type of bird photo and was acting fast!)
+0.3EV to perfect histogram
handheld