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At first, from a distance, I thought this was a white-faced heron but when I got close I noticed it was missing something important: the white face! When I got back to my books I realised it had to be an Eastern Reef Egret and the dark morph form at that, which is, apparently, fairly uncommon. He was fishing from exposed rocks around Cleveland Point and this was as close as the bugger would let me get with that horrible 70-300mm G lens. A terrible shot, I know, but I'm posting it here to give me further incentive to upgrade my telephoto equipment!!!
I used the Better Beamer with this and really wished I had some better glass to do justice to this gorgeous bird. The white bits around his bill are from his preening.
As always, your comments are very welcome.

Simon,
That is a bloody good photo - and to have taken it with the G lens !!! Congratulations ! The BB is good huh?
Well done - I hope you are proud of this shot, cos I sure wish I'd taken it
Hugs
Rel

good capture with the 70-300g.

I couldnt even get sharp shots today with vr.
very very sad.

sTEve

the colour is great
too bad about the blur from the equipment used

compositionally as a suggestion would be better if there was more room around the bird maybe place bird in the bottom left of a wider framed area that woudl give it a sense of dramatism and scale

Rel - thanks; you flatter me!

Steve - must be sunspots or something! Thanks for the comments.

Wendell - Cheers mate. Original comp was exactly as you stated but I cropped the shot in due to some manky stuff in the water behind the bird. I took some more from other angles but haven't had a chance to check them out and do some PP yet. Tomorrow...