This young Cooper's Hawk has just received a snack delivered by mom.

Canon 7D with the 500L f4 lens on monopod @ 1/400, f4, ISO 1250, +2 1/3 exposure compensation.

As you can see by my settings, this was a very dark scene. But, because of the play of the light on the tree trunk and branch, I found it hard to resist taking my chances with sensor noise and upping the ISO to 1250.

Slight crop to format to my usual 12 x 16. The far background to the right blurred away, although it might look a bit too plastic - I think that I can improve it by desaturating the blue. Background despeckled after sharpening - despeckling was my sole method of noise reduction for this pic. A little boost in vibrancy and contrast, and voila, all done.

Thanks again to Chuck Kling for your helpful info.

Cheers,

Mike

PS: I corrected the original posted image by desaturating the right upper sky background as suggested above - much better.