Daurian Redstart.

[Dave Johnson]

Male Daurian Redstart atop his favorite look out perch (natural). BKG is a grass bank covered with fallen leaves.

1DX, tripod, 500F4 ii, 1/250, F5.6, ISO 640.

Hope you like it? Thanks for looking

[Karl Egressy]

Nice looking back pose and nice background.

[keith mitchell]

Lovely looking bird nicely composed with a very good looking bg,could be my eyes in which case I apologise, but the bird does look a little soft.

Keith.

[Daniel Cadieux]

What a cutie! Great BG, and the look-back pose is fun. It looks to me as if critical focus landed on the wings' primaries, thus making the head seem a tad less sharp than those.

[gail bisson]

I love seeing a new bird!
The BG is stunning.
Love the look back pose.
I would crop in from the RHS so that the branch starts at RLC- you don't need that much room on the right because the bird is looking at you, not off to the right.
You could selectively sharpen the head.( softness may be due to DOF but could also be motion as your SS is only 1/250)
With little birds I use pinpoint single focus (for perched shots only) and make sure I get it on the head, which can be hard to do because these little guys never stop moving. The DOF is so limited with our big lenses that the head is always where the critical focus needs to be.
My settings for this bird with the 1 Dx would have been ISO 1600 and I would have increased the SS and decreased the aperture. Personally, for small, non-stop moving birds I try to have a minimum SS of 1/800 and will use whatever ISO gets me there. The 1 DX is an amazing camera and I often use ISO 2500 for our dull dark winter days.
Gail