WC#621 Backlit Bobcat

Many in the Avian forum got to see lots of bird photos from my first trip the Bosque del Apache. This bobcat was taken on my last day there...sort of icing on the cake of a a wonderful trip! I'd never, ever seen a bobcat before, so I was quite excited when I saw this very large cat cross the road about 200 yards in front of me. I tried to mark the spot where it went into the desert brush and pulled my rental car up to the spot. I didn't see it anywhere at first, and then I spotted just its head behind some of the dead brush. Don't laugh, but I let out my best cat call and darn if it didn't walk out to a clearer area and sit down! Unfortunately, it wasn't long after sunrise and I was shooting almost directly into the sun AND it was on the passenger side of my SUV! I put the lens out the window, tried to control my shaking, and got about 20 nice shots of it before it ran off into the desert.
The backlighting here was a real challenge for me, both in the taking and the processing. I did a slight crop to straighten the image, and multiple adjustments to brightness, contrast, and temp in LR, and sharpened, applied NR, created a border with NIK filters, and resized for the web in PS. I also cloned out a dark stick in the LLC in PS.


50D, 700mm, ISO 400, F6.3, 1/500 LARGER version is included! Thank you for any comments/critiques...I learn from them all, and I'd really like to know what you think of the image...good or bad. Sharon