Another from my recent cherry blossom shots. This time a Song Sparrow.
Canon 7D II; Sigma 150-600 at 600 mm; 1/640 at f6.3; ISO 100; LR and PS. Slight crop off the left.
Oh, I love the colors in this. It definitely speaks to cherries, with those yellowish-green leaves and the pink flowers. I find the OOF blossoms in the LRC a bit distracting. I think it’s because the opposite corner (ULC) is so soft and lovely. It feels a bit unbalanced. Maybe blurring out the blossoms even more would make it more balanced. The sparrow is beautiful - love the texture of his/her feathers.
Hi Allen,
very nice singing pose and I love the pink background. Nice behavioral catch. Nits to me are the leaf intersecting the bird’s mouth and the bird seems a little crunchy to me (maybe over sharpened?). Still a fine image well seen and captured.
Excellent singing posts with good detail and composition. I’m a little mixed on the out of focus flowers in the foreground on the left lower corner. I’m also wondering whether you could desaturate the pinks a tiny bit to put the focus more on the bird. It is a little busy with a leaf sticking in the bird’s mouth.
Thanks, all, for the comments. I wasn’t happy with the two leaves by the mouth and throat and attempted to remove them, but it just created a mess. The leaves are bamboo, by the way.
Lovely calling pose image. The soft pastels work nicely. My biggest wish… 400mm instead of 600mm… 
@Keith_Bauer, here’s a re-post of the same scene I shot at 361 mm. The sparrow may be too centered, but there were bare branches in the lower right corner that I felt detracted from the scene, so I cropped them out. Cloned out the stem near the sparrow’s mouth. Thanks for your input.
I’m rather late coming to this, but the addition of the second version answers some of my questions. I like the added vertical room of the second version, but the extra canvas on the left feels like too much for my taste. I think I’d come in about half way to the bird on the left. Beautiful setting in this image and I love the singing pose.
If at first you don’t succeed. . . thanks to @Keith_Bauer and @Dennis_Plank for their suggestions. Here’s another re-post. See below. I knew I would eventually reply without the photo.
And now we’re talking. I like this much more than the original version. 
Very nice, Allen, and yes, the last repost is the best of them all. I really like that you caught him singing. Wonderful details, and the pretty pink flowers makes for a nice background.
Nice job, Allen. I like this a lot.
Better balance. This is now best crop.
