Cedar Waxwing

[Peter Farrell]

Taken in Newport News, VA this morning, partly cloudy skies. Sony A700, 70-400G, f5.6, 1/1000, iso400, on tripod. PP in PSE8, cloned out some oof branches, cropped, contrast and saturation boost, sharpen, lightened area around eye.
With thier natually soft feathers it's a challenge to get good fine feather detail on this species.

[Mark Young]

The pose is really nice here, exposure looks good. I think even though you might not pick up the fine feather details as you've pointed out, you could though run a few passes over the bird to sharpen the eye a tad.

[Arthur Morris]

I like the minimalist look and agree that a contrast mask on the bird would likely help.