Hit up Prospect Park in Wheat Ridge Colorado and had a great morning shooting the foxes.
I know there are some nits to the image. I clipped the ear, I should have had a lower angle (couldn't move or I would have scared it off, did that earlier). For those master PS folks out there the left eye was in shadow so I worked with it to look more natural but from the start is was very noisy. I tried cloning with the other eye but it didn't look natural. Any advise there or other C&C more than welcome.
D200 300mm f4 @ 1/1000 f6.3 ISO 400 hand held 90% Cropped, took off part of the BG on top
I like the portrait a lot. The color is good and the exposure excellent. The fox's right eye, image left, looks over sharpened compared to the rest of the image. Not bad, just more sharp than the rest.
You did a good self-critique so I will say I like the tight portrait look of the image. One thing you might want to try for the eye in shadow: Process one normally for the highlights and then process another increasing the exposure 1 stop, 2 stops or whatever to open up the shadows. Copy the BG from the second as a layer into the first. Create a layer mask on that larger and then fill it to black. Then use a soft brush to paint of the eye revealing the opened-up shadows.