Camera Model Canon EOS 7D
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/1250
Av( Aperture Value ) 6.3
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation -2/3
ISO Speed 400
Lens EF500mm f/4L IS USM
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode AI Servo AF
AF area select mode Zone AF
I was having a little difficulty in taming the highlights - they were recoverable in Adobe RAW, only the tinest patch was hot - literally a couple of dots under the wing i.e. not the neck or chest. By the time the jpeg was generated the whites appear to lack detail, I tried shadows/highlights and linear burn but wasn't entirely happy. I did notice however in the file data that for some reason the camera was on SRGB as opposed to Adobe RGB.
I am on my work monitor which isn't reliable on the whites unfortunately.
I often try the multiply blend mode for slightly hot whites. It isn't as strong as the linear burn, but I think it can look more natural if carefully applied.
Good preening pose with head almost parallel to the sensor.
If it were mine, I might consider cropping up a bit from the bottom, to just below where the long shadow starts, and try a few variants of a bit tighter crop on the other sides to isolate the bird a bit more. It depends on how important the environmental component is to you.
Thanks for the C&C originally I did crop a little tighter I will have another look, I suppose I am a little cautious about too much cropping as one of my previous shots of thee grey headed gulls suffered a little from image quality loss.