Arty manipulation

I've been dibbling on other websites and, looking at one my favourites, Mike McDowell's blog (www.birddigiscoping.com/blog.html he is a master digiscoper, who uses a Coolpix 995 to brilliant effect), I notice he refers to Orton Imagery technique. I clicked on the link on his site (www.naturephotographers.net/articles0106/dw0106-1.html) which took me to text by Darwin Wiggett about a technique pioneered by Michael Orton. Basically, it is a way of artifying your pics by combining a blurry layer with a sharper one, somehow bringing out sharper bits and blurrifying less sharp areas.
Here is an example using the Great Spotted Woodpecker I photographed at Eldernell a couple of weekends ago. The artyfied Ortonised pic comes first, followed by the standard version. I'm not saying one or the other is better or worse, its just a different way of looking at the image. As usual, click on the images for whoppers.