Otherwise known as a Great Blue Heron. This guy was resting in a tree several hundred feet from me out in the lake.
Canon Xti 100-400 L, handheld through Pickup window at iso 400, 1/750 sec at f/11. using Aperature Priority at 400mm.

WOw, that's very good quality.

Very nice Paul, sharp, good exposure and comp and I like the perch. Well done!

Great capture, they sure are cool birds.

There was a lot of clone tool used here to get rid of some other branches to clean it up. He was standing in a forest intially and I shot straight into the sun so had some flare to fix but I am happy with the results. Thanks everyone for the nice comments.

You seem to have fixed it up just fine. At least it was a good quality photo to begin with. It's nice and sharp.

This picture aint as clear as yours, just taken with plain ol' digital.

Heron on the Red river

Sweet shot, Paul. Crisp and sharp, excellent light. And kudos on the exposure and photoshop work.

I like the perch as well, Paul! You have a few sensor spots on the left hand side... time for a spring cleaning.

Ya BUzz, I noticed the sensor spots, I had a lot more actually I just missed a couple while cloning. I need to clean my sensor soon. I am just a little leary about cleaning the sensor. I am sure I won't hurt anything I just don't know the best method. Time to search the forums, I think I saw a post about it somewere.

Paul, most use the Copper Hill method, and a quick online search will bring you there. The supplies cost me less than $30 and there are enough supplies to last me 10 years. Feels a bit hinky the first time, but after cleaning my sensors many times over the last few years it's just routine.

Dan (DBL) here helped me with my first camera cleaning (Thanks again Dan) and like Steve said, the first time is a little scary but then it's nothing. Instead of the cloning tool, take a look into the "patch tool". It works cleaner wonders.

Ditto on the "patch tool" nice little underutilized option that works wonders.

Man, we are a bunch of well synched post processing junkies!

Can't find the patch tool. Does CS2 have it?