Stills

right = left as usual
 

I see two pictures here. The one as presented, which is an interesting wildlife study with extras like the reflection. For my second picture, I crop the top 40% or so such that I see the reflection of the upper bank, but not the bank itself. This gives me an illusion of abstraction much like a chinese drawing. The heron is then flying out of the top of the picture and away from the interesting blotchy bit bottom right. In this version I lose the impression of life (i.e. it just becomes a design).

I'm not suggesting that you do the crop, but I am interested in how the upper bank anchors the shot and defines the sort of photograph that it is.
 

Oddly enough, I think I might prefer it without the bird, or perhaps with the just the reflection of the bird. As it stands, the bird and the reflections are battling for my attention.
 

The comment that I come closest to agreeing with is the point Rex made about the camera being pointed a touch left. I was standing on a bridge (in the centre of Newcastle Emlyn) photographing the heron in the other direction (West, this shot is East) while it was doing its Dylan Thomas bit in the shallows. It is the first time that I had seen a heron here in 20 years. It then flew under the arches of the bridge so I rushed across the road to get this and admit that the composition could have been better, although balancing out bird against light and shadow would have left little space to play with!

I can see Auspicious' alternative 'Chinese' print but with the current dimensions that would give a square shot and I think I prefer portrait mode.

Matt's desire (given the shooting position and time) would give a landscape mode picture that might work quite well if the bird was slightly further right.

But I rather like the corporeal element of having the bird set in the landscape: it is not often one gets shots of herons from above. For the record, the white spots are probably the result of excessive nutrient run-off concentrated in the low level of the river after the relative drought (relative because it wasn't as bad here as in other parts of the country). Blame the farmers!
 

There's a lot competing for my attention here so perhaps you have more than one shot or a tighter/different crop is required. I'd really go to work on bring out that reflection of the heron on the water surface. Not sure what the flotsam is but I'd like to calm it down a little. My over-riding feeling of looking at the picture is one of stillness. I think it needs something just to add a little movement (motion blur on the wings?). I do think you have something here but it needs a lot of darkroom work to bring it all out.