Taken at Oakey, QLD. These are typically skittish birds, but this male (I suspect young) let me get quite close. These birds are smaller than a Crow.
edit: Canon EOS R3, Canon EF 500f4 IS L and EF 1.4x III TC. Metered manual exposure, slight crop.
Cheers,
Dave
Great pic. We have them in the west too but have never got a good pic of one 
One comment: I would crop it so the bird is a little further left in the frame as it feels like there is too much empty space on the left. Just my preference.
A rarely beautiful photo. What a character!
I prefer to keep my cropping ratio to 3:2. I dislike 1:1 crops etc, so unfortunately there’s no way that I can crop and remove some of that space to the Left of the bird with a 3:2 crop. I have other shots from this session where the bird is looking directly ahead and not at me, where the space works better:
Good luck with these birds - they are usually atop telegraph poles and rarely on the fence post from my experiences. They are very skittish. 1 tip I learned is to approach the bird with the lens/camera up to your face. If the bird cannot see your human face, it tends to be less skittish and alarmed. Might be worth a try.
I was not suggesting you change your crop ratio, just to move the bird a little left in the existing frame! Just my preference 
I probably could extend the Right hand side and use generative AI fill and crop to 3:2 to do it. Still not convinced that it’ll make a better image though LOL! I try not to do stuff like that and keep my image original.
Perhaps ReShape tool could help in this case?
reshape tool? I’m only using DXO PureRaw, no intentions of using other RAW editing software other than Lightroom Classic, and of course, Photoshop.
@dpastern Not sure you know about Birdlife Photography in Australia but take a look at their site for lots of info on bird photography
Sadly, I heavily dislike competitions due to their excessively heavy handed rules.
