Is it real?

There is a growing skepticism about AI in photography, with justification. Is an image “real” or not? There are many posted on FB that are beyond strange. IMO this image falls in between. This is a Marbled Godwit, a common winter resident here in San Diego. I was sitting at water’s edge with the camera and large lens (840 mm) photographing Surf Scoters (a duck) in a small bay. The Scoters were approximately 40-50 feet away. The Godwit started walking toward me and continued to come until he was 15′ away, barely within the minimum focus distance of my lens. My camera was in horizontal position (landscape) and I felt if I tried to rotate it, the bird would spook. So the original image was very tight on the top and bottom. When I processed it, I cropped it in a vertical (portrait) mode. Photoshop “added” space above and below via AI. This is commonly referred to as “adding canvas”. Beyond that there is little processing. I muted some dark blotches in the BG and brought up some shadows on the bird. Now, is this a “fake” image? For me, no; for others ?