I've been going through some of my old photos from last year with an eye towards some of the suggestions I've seen here. Reprocessed this one in lightroom with sharpening/resizing in PS. I was tempted to clone out some of the pine needles near the tail but opted to leave it as is. I've only really started looking for this in detail recently but I hope the HAP will be happy :)
Technical Bits:
Nikon D80
Nikon 80-200mm 1:2.8 (at 125mm here)
ISO 400 f/4.0 1/125sec
matrix metering (-1/3 eV compensation) with on camera flash
Beatufiul portrait of this jay in its habitat with wonderful detail and color. I don't mind the pine needles at all. The only thing that's a little bit distracting to me are the lighter spots in the needles behind the bird. Perhaps those could be burned a little?
A beautiful jay, I've always enjoyed viewing photos of this species and yours is no exception! Some of the reflections on the needles are distracting, particularly the ones in front of the breast. Also, if you look carefully you will find a faint hint of "steel eye" in the pupil caused by your flash.