Last Chance Bluebird

The nestlings from the box in our back yard all fledged yesterday, when I just happened to have too busy a day to pay much of any attention and the whole clan has disappeared at least temporarily, though my wife did see an adult or two very late yesterday evening.  This image was taken the previous day.  I'd gotten some images, but wasn't satisfied because I kept getting more bright sky in the image than I wanted.  For this, I lashed my tripod over the top of a 6 foot stepladder to get just a bit more height and get the bluebird against the line of firs along the back of our property.  Unfortunately, he didn't cooperate by bringing in mouthfuls of interesting prey (just one small larva) and this turned out to be the image I liked most.

7Dii, Sigma 150-600 C @ 600 mm, tripod with ballhead and Sidekick lashed to step ladder, f/8, 1/400, iso 800, aperture priority, pattern metering.  Processed in LR & PS CC.  Cropped from a horizontal original to 10 MP before resizing.  Taken at 7:28 pm on July 26th.

Your comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,