Male Red Crossbill

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

40D, Canon 100-400@400mm, 1/250 f 14.0, ISO 400 Fill Flash

[Randy Stout]

Arsdel:

Lovely colors here, bird and background, work well together. Such an interesting bill.
The flash helped open up the shadows and helped the colors pop a bit more, but you have the dreaded "steel eye" and may want to work on that reflection.
I might consider a 40% crop of the free space at top.

Cheers

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice find and good-looking specimen. The eye looks a bit overflashed and I would put the bird higher in the frame. It would be nice to see some texture in the BG, it looks as if you applied an average blur.

[Jim Fenton]

Agree with Axel on the BG being too smooth and Randy is right on with the eye comment.

Overall the light looks too intense or too flashed or something relative to the BG.

Subject may look better higher in the frame and more to the right so it's not looking down and out.

[Fabs Forns]

Another vote for placing the bird higher in the frame, especially that he is looking down. Slightly darkening the feathers and eye may help with the overflowed look. TFS.

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice capture. Agree with others comments. Was something done to his feet on the perch?