These yellow birds are really touch to expose in long warm light as it's touch to ride the highlights just below overexposing them in order to not block up the shadows and have the noisy.
Nikon D300, 500VR, TC17EII, ISO 640, f9.0, UniWB, CW metering, 0 EV
You certainly nailed the exposure perfectly. Good composition and capture out in teh open with a beauty bg. The only thing I might do would be to crop a tad off the left.
Excellent comp, and good job on the yellows and black. I love the pose you got, and the blooming thistle under the tail tip is bonus! I really wish the OOF stuff in LRC wasn't there, and I'd eliminate the miniscule second catchlight, but apart from that this is pretty darn good.
great job, you are so right on yellow birds, sometimes a bit of cloud cover helps. You got it perfect, and I like everything about it except the OOF L corner.