Gull at Big Springs

Having sea gulls close to Yellowstone in Idaho [Big Springs State Park] was a big surprise to me.

That's why birders don't call them "sea gulls" but rather gulls. In this case, a Ring-billed Gull.

The capture is good with the OOF flowers. The whites on the head are blown on my calibrated monitor, and a bit more DOF would have given you more of the wings in focus. Looks like you had ample light...

Jack, I think at f/8 the wings would have been fairly sharp given the focal length unless the bird was really close. The blur is more a result of the 1/500s shutter speed IMO. You can get the body of a bird sharp at that SS if you are really good at panning, but wings moving in the opposite plane will not be sharp. I probably would have sacrificed DOF for SS here and went with f/5.6 or lower to get my SS up to over 1/1000s. That would have stopped things better and resulted in a sharper image. The lightest areas of the gull are too bright on my monitor as well. If this were mine, I would tone them down. I hope this helps. Keep shooting.