Nice image Phil - love the sharpness in the eyes and the background is fantastic. I do find the OOF foreground to be a bit distracting - you might consider burning it in a bit so that it is not so light. When I look at the photo my eyes go first to the birds eyes, then immediately to the "jewelry" - if your ethics permit, you might consider removing the bands (or at least toning down the red one on the birds left foot).
superb image and i loved the light. silky feel here. though i still feel that the legs could have more details recovered as highlights seems to be high.
Pose and sharpness are great. and background is really lovely. I might be tempted to crop a bit off the bottom. Red band is an unfortunate distraction.
Beautiful BG colors and sharp details on the face. I like thepose very much. I agree w/ Mital regarding the toning down just a slight bit. Fantastic image.
Beautiful image - sharp where it counts with a lovely BG. The OOF foreground is a distraction, but I guess that's a consequence of getting down low for the shot. I was going to suggest that you could have stopped down a bit to get more of the bird in focus, but you were already at ISO 1000.
I agree with Bill that the band is a distraction. I wonder why such a large band on such a small bird? Seems like some ornithologists are behind the miniaturization curve...
That is indeed a fantastic stare that you captured. The standard bird band is on the right leg. I don't recognize that huge band on the left leg with 2 rivets. Must be part of a special study.
Awesome stare, and very sharp on the eyes. Although lowest is often best I think that getting higher just a few inches to clear the feet from the FG would have been better here. I'm finding the WB a tiny bit on the green side...try adding a touch of magenta in Color Balance...
Arresting gaze from the owl . . . thanks for capturing it. I'd vote against surgery so major as removing the tags. I wouldn't have a problem with removing the brown stick in the background. I'm a guy who loves to crawl, but there've been a few times in which I got too low. Could that have been a problem with you here? I'd love to see the owl's feet; I'd love to see as little of that OOF foreground as possible.