Yellow-breasted Chat

[Jack Backs]

I captured this image early in the morning this past spring. These birds really like to stay in deep brush cover so I was pretty pleased to catch one exposed on a decent perch. It was vocalizing the whole time and I was not able to get an image where throat wasn't at least a little puffed out. There is a lot of fine feather detail in the yellows and whites that I can't get to be expressed in this size of compressed file. A couple of minor OOF branches were removed. This is pretty much full frame, only minor cropping on the right.
Nikon D500, 500mmF4 VRII, TC-14EIII
F8, 1/500sec, iso320
Jack

[Daniel Cadieux]

Not a species we often see. Cool hunched pose running parallel with the perch. Well focused and sharp. The bulged throat makes it seem larger than it is. I think you could warm up the image a bit, and/or remove the bluish cast on the bird's whites. As posted the yellows are hot in some spots, adding to the loss of detail you allude to. I also would have pointed the lens up a bit more to lower the subject in the frame. From what I hear this is not an easy bird to get out in the open, I bet you were rather happy with the opportunity!