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....... in for a feed of apple...... as I am just under 2 meters from the birds there is not a lot of DOF even at f9.. D300 Sigma 300mm 2.8 +2X TC, 320 ISO 80th@f9 camera on tripod

Impressively close! BTW, the eye doesn't seem that sharp here, unless we click through to the full image. I try to keep my images here at 760 pixels on the long side to avoid the auto-resizing that happens by the time you reach 800 pixels.

Also there seems to be some chromatic aberration visible here. You can see it on the edges of the apple in the lower-left, and the green halo around the bird in the upper right. Play with the CA corrections available in your RAW processor and this can remove those and improve the sharpness across the entire image.
Also you should be able to tone down the bright spots on the apple and on the back of the bird's head.

Awesome shot, I had a chance at something very similar a little while back (up at Palm Beach whilst eating breakfast) but my camera was inside and not with me on the balcony.

DaveB wrote:Impressively close! BTW, the eye doesn't seem that sharp here, unless we click through to the full image. I try to keep my images here at 760 pixels on the long side to avoid the auto-resizing that happens by the time you reach 800 pixels.

Also there seems to be some chromatic aberration visible here. You can see it on the edges of the apple in the lower-left, and the green halo around the bird in the upper right. Play with the CA corrections available in your RAW processor and this can remove those and improve the sharpness across the entire image.
Also you should be able to tone down the bright spots on the apple and on the back of the bird's head.

....... should be fixed now thanks

Wow this is a nice capture indeed. I am finding it hard to see the CA, maybe it's already been fixed.

Yeah, it's not there any more! The highlights I referred to have also been fixed.

Filled the frame beautifully