First Day of Spring

Nice capture Bruce, I like the pose, the background, all the colors, and I really like the habitat. I'll let someone else handle the constructive criticism.

I like what Gary had to say. The head appears soft to me. Probably a narrow DOF. Less shutter speed would overcome that in a similar situation.

Very nice. The whites on the throat look a little hot and the dark brown oof area at the top is distracting.

Bruce,

I like the singing pose of your sparrow and the habitat included in the image, the gentle curves of the phragmites stalks are appealing.

The light could be better though if that had been taken earlier in the day, judging from the shadows I would say this was taken getting close to midday and the light had begun to get harsh. Given the light you had I would have used around ISO 200 which would still have given you enough shutter speed for a singing bird and I may have also used a little negative EV compensation to help with the light. As posted there are several spots where the whites are blown, those you may be able to bring down in RAW if you shot this in RAW. I highly recommend shooting in RAW, it gives you the ability to adjust things that you do not have when only shooting jpeg. I'd reduce the contrast in this image as presented and apply some selective sharpening to the head of the sparrow which appears soft to my eye.

I like your choice of composition and the open bill of the sparrow.

Hi Bruce. I am looking forward to seeing and hearing this species (heck I'll take any new spring arrival). I really like the perch and the other stems, but the dark area at the top right is distracting to me as well. The white on the bird seems a bit cyan on my monitor, warming the entire photo would be my suggestion therefore.