Hoodie

This is based on an image I made of a Hooded Crow (Corvus corone) in Bergen, Norway, on 9 April 2007. The bird was foraging with another (maybe mate) amongst the debris of the forest floor. The Hooded Crow is a race of the Carrion Crow and tends to replace the latter in more northerly or upland areas.

I have pruned some of the sticks on the forest floor, lightly dodged the head, cleaned the eye up, and performed noise reduction using DFine.

Nikon D70, 18-200mm VR, 1/320s, F5.6, no ISO data, jpeg.

Good exposure control, details and look back. I find the BG a bit busy and it might work as vertical, too.

I like the look of this bird. You did a good job of keeping deatil in the three different colors of the bird. The BG doesn't bother me but the three bright sticks do draw attention as the birds beak is pointing right at them and leads my eye that way.
Steve

A beautiful bird, a perfect exposure, sufficient dof, a good head turn, yet because of the setting this one will not win any prizes. Now, if it had been parallel to you along the ridge line... IAC, very well done--you just needed a better situation.

later and love, artie