White-crowned Sparrow

These guys are very attractive sparrows, you are fortunate to have them wintering there. Not sure a few steps closer would have been of benefit Richard, I like seeing the varied tones and colours in the background and hint of vegetation as is. Nice and sharp!

He offered a very nice head turn Rich, and the background is gorgeous. Excellent techs as usual.

Very nice. The head turn and highlight in the eye add a lot here. I think the added environment works well in this.

Hey Richard, this is the most common sparrow species we have in Colorado in the winter as well. I love photographing them and really enjoy what you have here. Nice job with the environment and I like the green BG as it implies spring is close.

This is a gorgeous image! Nice head turn and dof, with the branches framing the bird nicely. I love the soft pastel-like colors and the touch of green leaves really balance everything out nicely. Very, very nice! Sharon

The large version is impeccable Richard. The BG is dynamite and framed beautifully between the branches. Thanks for sharing it.

Great capture. The larger image is a must see. No nits from me.

Sweet image, Richard. I can't wait to hear the singing again. Excellent detail and I always like over the shoulder poses.

Love the setting and the muted tones Richard

I think the centered comp works well here Richard, the limb over it's head adds interest, nicely done.

Well, I'm trying to find something I would change. I can't. As the other much more experienced members have commented, this is a very nice image. Sharpness is there, exposure looks good, bird is framed in between the branches nicely. Colors look good. I also respect your M.O. of a very natural image with little to no manipulation. Did you make any adjustments?
Also, I see you used aperture priority. I will go look at your other photos, but do you use that frequently instead of manual mode?
Al

Did you make any adjustments?

Just minor adjustments.

I shot in raw to provide the most information in the file, and do my raw conversion with Adobe Camera Raw module of Photoshop. I evaluate every raw file individually (rather than just using an Auto setting or converting in bulk). I pay close attention to the histogram and make adjustments to avoid clipping the highlights. For this image I think I made a small increase in exposure (maybe 0.15 on the slider). The other adjustment in raw conversion was warming up the image slightly.

In Photoshop proper I clean up any dust spots (if needed; none here). At this stage I also consider slight changes to Levels, Saturation, and Curves. Here I think it was just a bump in saturation (maybe 6 points).

There's always temptation to go too far with these adjustments - especially color temperature and saturation. So its good to toggle the adjustment layers on and off to see the effect.

Also, I see you used aperture priority. I will go look at your other photos, but do you use that frequently instead of manual mode?

I"ve been a Nikon user since the early 1970's, and have shot in aperture priority since the Nikkormat EL. For avian subjects I'm almost always near wide open so that keeps the shutter speed as high as possible for the set ISO. Since the shutter speed and aperture are both displayed in the viewfinder I can control both with the single aperture control. And since I use the big lens from a tripod I can allow the shutter speed to drop a lot lower.

Like this look back over the shoulder pose, this POV shows the birds plumage off very well.
The WC is harder to get close to than most other sparrows.. From my experience anyway.
Great details, BG, and natural framing Rich.