Winter Grosbeak

Hi all! Josiah and Jenaya have been keeping me too busy to do much processing of my own of late, but I hope to start catching up ASAP.

This one is pretty hot off the presses...Josiah and I found a small flock of pine grosbeaks at the edge of town tonight, and they were too preoccupied with harvesting these seeds to worry about a couple of telephoto lenses pointed their way.

This probably isn't my best overall, but I loved the inverted reach for more food and the high key winter background.

Not a lot done in post, and I decided to crop vs clone some errant twigs along the bottom and right, which ended up making a composition that worked for my eye anyway.

Comments, suggestions and critiques welcome and appreciated as always! I tried to keep the saturation in check and think this is fairly close to the actual scene...the light was diffused and right at the very end of the day, so things were warm and vibrant!

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 500mm f/4D IF-ED
ISO 2500
1/1250sec @ f/6.3 (I was anticipating a flight shot!)
+0.7EV
monopod mounted
cropped to app. 70%