Black-necked Stilt

I wasn't sure about this frame when I looked at in on the back of the camera, but I was really happy with it once I ran it through my editing pipeline. I captured the image about ten minutes after sunrise, the burned-orange generated as the early-morning light reflected off rocky hillsides behind the impoundment. Even though my 600mm lens is heavy as hell -- it weighs 8.5 lbs -- I love how it smooths out the fore- and backgrounds when shot wide open. A little surface clean-up during editing helped as well!

Riverside County, California, 12/2/21
Canon 600mm f/4 IS II on EOS R5
1/4000 at f/4, ISO 400