Lark Sparrow

[LaurieBraman]

Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Tv
Exposure compensation: +1 1/2
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Single frame shooting
ISO: 640
Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
Focal length: 700mm
Subject distance: 13 m
AF mode: One-shot AF
Image size: 3888 x 2592
Image quality: Raw
White balance: Auto
Picture style: Faithful
Color space: sRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: 0
Contrast: Normal
Tone: Normal
Custom Functions:
CFn I-1: Exposure level increments: 1/2-stop
CFn II-2: High ISO noise reduction: ON

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Looks like he/she is off to feed some hungry babes? A little steep, but the prey items balance the steepness for my liking. Did you use a lot of shadows/highlights to recover some underexposure perhaps?

[DanielleCox]

My group down here has a "rule" (they are all really just guidelines, eh?) about how a bird should be facing us. I find my eye jumping to the rump of the bird and that is a little distracting. I also find myself wondering where the bird was going from here and have no clues in the picture, so, to me, the compositional balance seems slightly off.
Now for the good parts, I like the eye and the mouth is an awesome action shot. If this were my camera, I would have already cropped to the limit to get this shot, but if you have more room, I might try to play with cropping to emphasize the head/face which is great and play down the back of the bird which is not as great.
Finally, one area where I differ from my group is that I think it is better to get a shot with flaws than to miss the shot entirely. So I would have shot it and if I could have had a picture that came out like this, I would be quite proud of it.