male cardinal changing plumage

[Joel Arrington]

Canon 40D, 1/200@f/6.3, ISO250, pattern metering, focal length 360mm, flash fill

In early spring some birds begin to lose plumage. Cardinals first frost over, then lose feathers, particularly around the head, making them unsuitable for most photographic purposes. This one is just days before its spring molt.

[Robert O'Toole]

Nice position and pose but 2 things would really make the image more appealing. Crop out most of the black and the tree trunck behind the bird for sure.
Then run some selective USM on the birds head and face. This would really help improve the image.

Robert

[Daniel Cadieux]

I have to agree the black area in the BG is quite distracting. The cardinal offered you a nice pose...interesting silver linings on the plumage.

[John Chardine]

I would add that the reds in the head and upper neck are wildly blown on my monitor. You can selectively reduce the saturation of the reds in Photoshop. I tried this and there is detail to be recovered, so perhaps "blown" is the wrong term.