Green-winged Teal

It's been a few months since I've been able to shoot birds with the long lens while a broken arm was healing. I decided to drive over to Ridgefield NWR yesterday in the fog and overcast to see what birds might be around. I was surprised, eagles, Shrikes, falcons, kingfishers and lots of waterfowl. Over the years the shy green-winged teals have usually eluded me but yesterday they were too busy feeding to care about observers. Given the lighting and conditions I am happy with many of the shots. I tried Marc A's "sharpening technique" on this one.

Canon 40D, 600mm f4.L F/5.6 1/2000 ISO 800

Thanks for your comments and suggestions

It was nice of this guy to hold still for you long enough to get some photos. These little buggars are so fast in flight, I can't imagine trying to catch them in action. I'm curios if this is a crop or not. For 600mm @ f/5.6, it seems like a lot of DOF for a full frame shot. I could be way off base though. I spend almost all of my time in the 12-24mm range

Aaron, this is a full size image, no cropping. I was fairly far from this guy and along with the lens, 1.4 converter and sensor conversion of 1.6 the total focal length is 1344mm. I am usually very limited on the DOF when using this combination and so was also surprised at how well it came out. Had it been a head-on shot, I think the DOF would have been lost before the tail. I have another teal posted in the Avian Gallery if your interested, I think he looks even better....
http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/ic.cgi?a=vp&pr=110829&CGISESSID=4625086aaf424dc2fbe7080d3785ce01&u=13572

Thanks for the comments

Love these guys. Such fine detail in the duck's feathers, Craig! Your description of the NWR indicates a "rich target area." I'm gonna have to get there one of these days!

Great shot Craig!! I love these little guys, and you are right on that they are really shy at photography distance. Is it possibly rotated a little? Also, I think bumping the saturation a little would help too.