These bushes are a little bit unusual enviroment for the herons and it's hard to capture them there. It's interesting to capture two of them.

Here's the trouble, that camera focused on the nearest bush, so the birds are very unsharp. It would be much better to use spot focusing on the nearest heron, leaving most branches unsharp.

I would also like to see more contrast in the photo.   Posted: 08/11/2019 07:57:23

You captured a great pose. The soft focus of the birds has a painting-like quality that I actually find refreshing given that many photographers have a tendency to over sharpen. To my eye, the vegetation is very distracting.   Posted: 08/14/2019 17:22:54

I find this shot interesting because the birds are watching each other's back much like I've seen elk in the wild. You might create a interesting photo by over saturating and sharpening the birds, then changing everything else to monochrome. This way the birds will "pop" and the background will become less of a distraction. It sounds easy but I know this would take pretty good post processing skills....which I do not have but this might work. It's a great pose and might be worth the work. Good luck.   Posted: 08/15/2019 16:04:17

It's wonderful that you shot the 2 birds in the grasses - good color and sharpness in the original, but with such a severe crop, the sharpness has been lost, and somehow the bright colors got lost too. The high ISO may also have contributed to the loss of sharpness. Perhaps if you cropped it less, and allowed the orange flowers in a darkened background to surround the birds, you might have a sharper image.   Posted: 08/15/2019 17:32:14

Nice pose of the birds. It is difficult to shoot images of birds in bush. You are successful in capturing the birds without much distraction. To me, the background is a little distracting. Your cropping is tight, but I still want more to emphasis the birds from the background. After cropping, i did some minor adjustments in levels and burning of the sides.   Posted: 08/16/2019 02:37:50

Thanks for the suggestions from all of you. I made a version using Lightroom Adjustment Brush with auto mask, Photoshop High Pas Filter sharpening.   Posted: 08/16/2019 09:20:32

  Posted: 08/16/2019 09:29:00