Absolutely beautiful, meg! Lovely sharpness, and muted colours. Nice!
Stunning, really...
I almost don't want to say, as this shot is shoulders above in so, so many ways: perhaps an absolute finicky person might wish for a catchlight in the eye(maybe a dodge for highlights around the head could also bring this out?) Yes, so sharp and lo-contrasty(reminds me of a Leica shot)..would you post details of lens/exposure etc;??
I see that you cared for the background in your picture. Very nice light too. The colors in the background and the bird are very similar, but the bird stands out because it is perfectly in focus. I would suggest to bright the light in the eye, on the other hand, as you don't have bright light in the picture, maybe it doesn't work well to have a bright light in the eye.
All in all your picture is great.
A little bit out of topic. I saw your lens, are you using a converter in this picture?
no i do not use converter for this lens at all. I've shot this with nikon d300 and nikkor 80-400VR. thanks for the comments.
![[Image: original.jpg]](http://www.pbase.com/abdulghani/image/94110765/original.jpg)