Golden backlighting

I photographed this sandhill crane at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.  I love the way the golden backlighting from sunrise is coming through the translucent wings.  However, in the original capture there were out of focus reeds in the background that detracted from the artistry of the shot. Completely out of focus backgrounds behind bird photographs work for me – when backgrounds are so soft they’re just an undefined blur of color.  In those instances, all the attention is directed to the subject.  But when backgrounds are partially blurred so there is still a lot of definition in them, in most instances the soft elements are distracting and, to be honest, visually annoying.  Therefore, I carefully selected the crane and replaced the background with a sky that was complementary and, at the same time, made sense given the light on the bird.  My settings for the original picture of the crane were 1/3200, f/8, and 3200 ISO, and I used a 500mm focal length for the shot.