flying rats

[flyinion]

aka the pigeon. These guys were nesting under the eave of the apt. building next to mine. Nearly got a shot of a blackbird with a worm or something else in its mouth landing next to these guys twice, but couldn't react in time. Don't have a tripod yet so due to the fact that it was sunset I had to jack the ISO to 800 to get a fast enough shutter for a clear enough pic.

Used a 75-300mm f4/5.6 at 300 and it has no IS. Lots of PS work to remove speckling from the ISO setting and learned how to use unsharp mask. Decided in the end a conversion to B&W looked kind of cool.

Guess I really need to get a tripod. Sharpening was a trade off between noise and slightly not sharp pic.

[Frog]

You've already pointed out what you consider problems but you forgot to mention the positive of good composition.
I've never heard of pigeons referred to as flying rats but I guess it fits.