A form of equilibrium

[Bogdan Coltea]

Red backed Shrike (Lanius Collurio)
Last light, early in the summer of 2008.
C&C welcome.

D300 & Tamron 200-500, f8, 1/60 sec, ISO800

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Beautiful bird and good eye contact, composition and BG. I would sharpen the head a bit more and run NR on the BG. There is a very slight sharpening halo, make sure just to select the bird only.

[Doug Brown]

Great pose, perch, and BG. The head looks a little soft; 1/60 is not very fast. I might have used a larger aperture to gain a bit more shutter speed.

[Bogdan Coltea]

Thank you for the comments. I missed the NR pass on the BKGR.
As far as aperture goes, the lens can only do f/6.3, at which setting it's quite soft.
1/60 was the most I could get in that fading light. I tried to compensate by good technique while firing repeated bursts.

Here is a repost with slight SH on the head, removed some halos and noise.