There was a lot of this going on, just off the beach. Sometimes the hen would trail the drake, other times the drake would trail the hen. I couldn't discern any pattern.
Nice sharp comparison of the sexes with identical wing poses, and this seems good result given the lighting (slightly higher sun angle than would have been ideal). Details on birds look pretty good and overall IQ is decent (but not better). Wider crops necessarily render less detail, so that's the tradeoff. Not sure you'd have the sharpness to crop tighter, so this works well.
Both sharp and both sexes, I would be very happy.
My only suggestion would be more above and less below.
It would look less like you were looking down.
Always great to have an image of both sexes and even better to have them in flight.
Sun a bit high and you have lost some details in the whites but overall, I would be very happy with this frame,
Gail
Really neat to see the comparison between the two. The blues in the water are of a rather appealing hue. You did as well as you could under the circumstances.
Excellent frame Bill. I agree with all the comments that have been made by other viewers. The only thing I would add would be image quality issues with the Sigma 150-600 C above 550 mm. I did a critical evaluation of this lens when I owned it (And used it with a D 500) and found that image quality decreased above 550 mm. As result I never shot above that and eventually sold the lens and replace it with the Nikon 200 to 500 which did considerably better. I never shot either lens with an extender. Yes there are trade-offs but would be worth evaluating especially with some of the lower prices on the 200 to 500.