The Proposal

I was out filling hummingbird feeders this morning when a pair of Evening Grosbeaks came in to our seed feeding station and acted so oblivious to me that I had to grab the camera.  I thought it was great when they both landed close enough to get them in the same frame, but when they struck this pose, I was totally floored, but managed to snap the shutter before he dropped the stick (I think she said "yes").  Maybe we'll have youngsters later this summer.  Since this is at a busy feeder station, I spent considerable time using the smart patch tool to remove bird doo from the Pileated cutout.

7D2, Sigma 150-600 C @ 324 mm, hand held, f/9, 1/1000, iso 640, aperture priority, pattern metering.  Processed in LR5 & CS6.  Cropped from a vertical original to a 4x5 aspect ratio with a touch of canvas added to the left where I'd crowded the tail too closely.  16.1 MP after cropping.  Taken this morning at 6:47 am.

Your comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,