Double Crested Cormorant

Double Crested Cormorant that surprised me coming out of the water as I was looking towards a Great Blue Heron farther down the shoreline in an oxbow in N. IL about 9:00am this morning.

Nikon D500, Nikon 200-500vr lens, shot Manual, spot exposure at 1/2000, f5.6, 480mm, & auto ISO 900. I know I should leave more room in the frame to the left for the bird to fly into however I really like the water splash on the right coming from the rear of the bird as it takes off out of the water. Comments welcomed.

Vaughn, It looks like you were dealing with some pretty harsh light that morning, some areas on the the neck and beak look a little hot.
I would still shift over the image to just behind the big splash, that way you still have the splash you like and also gain bit more room in front of the bird.
Ideally if the bird was going right you would have eliminated all the harsh shadows in the image. I would have also cropped the image more on the bottom
since the reflection doesn't really add anything to the shot and do some cleanup in the background. I have posted a picture that shows in red where the image was blown and
in blue where the image was solid black. I hope this helps, looking forward to seeing more.

-Tim