Good points, Tony. I'm not shy of using ISO400 - I just was shooting at 200 and getting good SS with my previous shots and didn't change it. I was awfully close and afraid of spooking the bird. The total DOF is actually somewhere between 1 ft to 2.2 ft, (based on 35 to 50 ft distance) so the focus point being on the chest area could have given me some softness in the beak, since it is closer. At f5.6 I would have only 9 inches total DOF, so I was shying away from that. In the full size shot, only the beak shows some softness. In the pic shown here, downsized automatically by the forum software, I see softness too. The original is at http://www.pbase.com/rickards/image/93390963. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.